


Of Gods and Men

by plottingalong



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Aged Up Percy Jackson Character(s), Angst, Annabeth Chase & Thalia Grace Friendship, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson Fluff, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson-centric, Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Camp Jupiter (Percy Jackson), Children of the Big Three (Percy Jackson), Confused Percy Jackson, Dark Percy, Dark!Percy, Dead Jason Grace, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Found Family, God!Percy, Hurt Percy Jackson, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Percy Jackson, Jason Grace & Percy Jackson Bromance, Mortality, Nico di Angelo & Percy Jackson Friendship, Nico di Angelo - Freeform, Nico is a Dork, Percy Jackson Angst, Percy Jackson Needs a Hug, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Post-The Heroes of Olympus, Post-The Trials of Apollo, Powerful Percy Jackson, Protective Hazel Levesque, RIP Jason Grace, Sad, Sad Percy Jackson, Tragedy, god!percy au, post trials of apollo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 33,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25405228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plottingalong/pseuds/plottingalong
Summary: The order of things are changing. Old rules are shifting, old gods awakening. Percy Jackson must come to terms with his own mortality, or rather, the lack of it.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase & Thalia Grace, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo & Hazel Levesque, Nico di Angelo & Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Paul Blofis & Percy Jackson, Paul Blofis/Sally Jackson, Percy Jackson & Frank Zhang, Percy Jackson & Grover Underwood, Percy Jackson & Hazel Levesque, Percy Jackson & Hazel Levesque & Frank Zhang, Thalia Grace & Percy Jackson
Comments: 364
Kudos: 851





	1. Of Gods and Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Percy and Annabeth track down a monster, Percy makes a disturbing discovery concerning his future.

The bullet hit Percy Jackson right in the chest. He hadn't even noticed the shotgun. He'd heard Annabeth scream and jumped into action, knocking her aside on the cracked pavement. Percy felt the bullet explode against his chest, and the pieces fall to the ground. Annabeth cursed and got up, before noticing the shotgun still in the man's hands and the charred hole in Percy's shirt. 

"Oh Gods," she muttered, her fingers running over his chest. 

"I'm fine." Percy replied, smiling. "It must've been a blank."

The man holding the shotgun didn't bother contradicting him, but Percy knew by his expression there was no way he should have survived that shot. The man backed into the dark house, almost shaking. Percy saw something in his eyes, something that had become familiar of the late. Fear. 

"Let's go." he said as calmly as he could, "he won't help us."

They piled back into Annabeth's car. For the past week, they'd been tracking down a monster that had killed three half-bloods on their way to camp. It was the perfect way to unwind before the semester began. Annabeth pushed him in the backseat and gave him a crumb of ambrosia. 

"You were just shot." she said, touching the hole in his shirt. "I'll drive."

Percy didn't argue. The first time he'd eaten ambrosia, it had tasted of home. Over the last few years, it had left a bitter taste in his mouth, of forgotten friends and battles. Now, it hardly tasted like anything at all. When they made their stop for the night, next to a stream that flowed through a copse of trees, Percy grabbed his sword. 

"I'll take first watch." he offered. Annabeth didn't argue. He kissed her forehead as she burrowed into her sleeping bag. 

The wind was cold against the hole in his shirt. Percy knew, as he had known the moment the bullet had hit him, that if it had hit Annabeth, she would be dead. Carefully, he nicked the edge of his finger with Riptide. The blood came readily. It was too dark to tell, but Percy had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't quite red. He found himself thinking of the first thing Chiron had taught him. Only heroes could be harmed by mortal and non-mortal weapons alike. 

Percy Jackson trusted only one deity. He was twenty five years old, and lately he'd discovered there were far more than he had originally thought, but he knew they were all essentially the same. So when he tossed a golden drachma into the spray of water he made from the stream, it was Hestia that looked at him from the other side.

"It's good to see you, Perseus." she said. She didn't seem surprised. 

"What am I becoming?" he asked flatly. 

Hestia smiled. "You've always been clever." she said. "What do you think?"

Percy didn't want to say it. 

"That's impossible." he said. "I said no."

"It has nothing to do with us." Hestia said. "Things are changing. Old powers awakening, rules shifting. You're too powerful, Perseus Jackson, to fit where you once fit. There is a new order."

"Will it happen all at once?" Percy asked. 

"No." Hestia said. "Slowly. A few more years, a decade at most. But I would start minding your temper now."

Percy knew there was no arguing with the goddess of the hearth. Hestia did not lie. 

"I don't want this." He told her. Perhaps begging would help. "Please, I don't want to become a god."

"Do you think any of us had a choice?" Hestia asked tiredly. The image faded, until the only thing Percy could see was the sadness in her eyes. 

Annabeth had started a fire by the time he came back. She didn't look up until he sat in front of her, on the other side of the flames. 

"I couldn't sleep." she said. "The semester starts in a week."

"We'll find the monster by then." Percy promised. "It can't be far."

Annabeth nodded. The two of them had always had excellent timing. They would find a way. She studied him with her grey eyes. She would figure it out, soon enough. Percy was sure of it. He wished her could go over to the other side of the fire and kiss her, but he kept the flames between them. There was still only one deity Percy Jackson trusted, and it wasn't him. 

"Is there anything you want to tell me?" She asked. She had spent her whole life building things that would last forever. He just hadn't known that included him, too. Percy stayed silent. Annabeth pulled a packet of Double Stuffed Oreos from her pocket. 

"Want some?" she asked. 

Percy shook his head. He'd stopped feeling hungry sometime last semester. Annabeth took two from the packet. She ate the first, top, middle, bottom. The second she held clenched in her hand. 

"You know, we're the perfect team, you and I," she said. "Perfect teams stay together."

That's what he'd thought, once. Hestia had said the rules were shifting, but one rule always stayed constant. Mortals and gods never mixed well. 

Without breaking eye contact, Annabeth put the second Oreo in the fire. The flames turned green and blue, and from the smoke came the smell of the sea, of metal, of blood. Percy Jackson felt something stir deep inside him as the smoke entered his nostrils, something he had never felt before. He knew, as he watched the woman he loved, that he had just been offered his first offering. 

"Perfect teams stay together." He repeated, it was a promise more solemn than anything he had ever sworn. They were going to stay together. After all, he'd never been particularly good at following the rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've decided to make this several chapters long. It'll be in chronological order but each chapter is also basically a standalone, all following Percy's descent to immortality, so bookmark/subscribe, I guess? (or don't, whatever you want.)


	2. Of Beasts and Boundaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson meets an old friend on the way to Camp Half-Blood, but is denied entry because of the changes occurring within him.

Percy Jackson killed the snake with his bare hands. Annabeth probably could’ve told him exactly what it was, who its mother was, and what god it prayed to but he didn’t care. He just wanted to kill it. The monster crumbled to dust between his fingers, and its siblings hissed and slithered back into the darkness. 

The alley under Sally Jackon’s apartment was empty. There used to be a bunch of drunk guys that spent their nights yelling lewd things at pedestrians, but no-one had seen them for weeks now.   
He hadn’t even had a chance to unsheath Riptide. He used to love that sword. Now it seemed to be reluctant to return to him when he lost it, a heavy weight in his pocket. He didn’t blame it. It was a hero’s sword after all, and he wasn’t exactly a hero any more. 

His mother had been encouraging him to go back to camp for the semester break. Annabeth was already there. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go. It was just that the children just kept on getting younger, and he didn’t want to leave his mother in the city where there were men that yelled stuff under her apartment building. He knew, logically, that she had been dealing with that sort of stuff since before he was born. That didn’t make leaving any easier, not when Camp Half Blood felt so foreign. 

Paul made him tea when he came back up the stairs. He’d used to look at Percy as if he was just another lost kid, a boy from Lord of the Flies, maybe. Now he looked at Percy as if he was the star of his very own Shakespearean tragedy, the type where everyone eats dinner and then falls down dead. 

“I’m leaving for camp tomorrow.” Percy said. “First thing.”

Paul nodded. “If you ever need to talk,” he said. “I’m here to listen.”

He meant it. He really did. But Percy knew that no matter how much he listened, he could never understand, and besides, things were constantly listening to him. The water. The corn. The shadows. He caught them waiting as he hummed in the shower, when he drove, when he slept, waiting for something to happen. Percy Jackson knew the world was attuned to gods. He hated it. 

He texted Annabeth the next day to tell her he was coming. He wondered what she was doing at camp. She wasn’t head counselor anymore, had given it up to a younger, ambitious sibling. James? John? They had all started to blur together. His leather necklace was heavy with summers that rattled as he drove upstate. The sky was blue and the road ahead completely empty. He found himself wishing something would block it, and nearly jumped out of his seat when something did, dragging itself against the concrete. Percy screeched to a stop and jumped out. It was not something but someone, with choppy black hair, and a single silver earring. 

“Thalia?” Percy asked, tucking her hair behind her ears. Thalia opened her blue eyes, gasping in pain. Percy cradled her in her arms and picked her up. She weighed nothing to him. Percy Jackson sometimes wondered if he would notice if he was carrying the weight of the world. 

“It’s still out there,” Thalia warned, her breath ragged. “Behind us.”

Percy looked around at the fields. He couldn’t see it, but there wasn’t time to fight, not now. He put Thalia in the seat next to him and pressed his foot to the gas. 

“Where are the others?” he asked. Thalia’s cheeks were tinged green. Her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably. 

“In Kentucky… I thought…” she wheezed, “that I could do this alone.” She coughed. Percy pressed on the gas pedal harder. Camp Half Blood glittered in the distance, serene as always. Thalia took a deep breath. 

“Stupid of me,” she muttered. “Immortality starts to get to you, huh?”

She knew. She could probably feel it, was giving him the same look the horned women at Starbucks gave him last week, the stone eagles at the plaza gave him yesterday. It was pity, mixed with fear.

“Is it bad?” he asked, his eyes on the road ahead. 

“Two different brands,” Thalia whispered. Her lips were turning blue. “A fast moving scorpion-armadillo could get me any day. You… not so much.”

Percy really wanted to ask which episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender a scorpion-armadillo was from, but they’d arrived. He slammed his foot on the brakes and scooped Thalia back up. The tree was at the top of the hill. Percy began to run. 

The grass whispered. Turn back, it said. Turn back, this is your warning. 

“Is there trouble at camp?” Percy gasped. They had almost reached the tree. The Golden Fleece dangled on its topmost branches. He considered trying to grab it to heal Thalia but decided against it. He didn’t know what sort of nasty stuff protected it. Below, he could see campers playing volleyball. 

You aren’t welcome. The grass hissed. 

“I’m Percy,” Percy said. “This is Thalia, a Hunter. We’re not monsters.”

She is not. It was the tree that spoke. She may enter. 

They reached the barrier. Percy took another step forward, and felt his legs seize up. 

“I’m a camper!” he yelped. 

Not anymore. 

“What do you mean?”

We do not know what you are. You have much power. You could be dangerous. Yield the Hunter, son of Poseidon.

“It’s okay,” Thalia whispered. “I’ll go get Chiron. He’ll let you in.”

Percy helped her to her feet. She took a step over the boundary and collapsed. Percy took a step forward to help her but found himself held back. Anger filled his chest, and he uncapped Riptide. He’d lost enough over the years. He couldn’t lose Camp Half-Blood. He couldn’t lose his home. 

He attacked the tree. The places where Riptide hit shrivelled up and died, as if poisoned. The Golden Fleece hanging above it kept the poison from reaching the trunk, but just barely. Percy felt as though he was filled with acid. He could feel something uncoil in the pit of his stomach, something that had been dormant for a long time.

“Percy,” Thalia said weakly. “Stop.”

He couldn’t. He hacked away at the tree separating between him and his home until the boundary relented, just for a moment. He dove past it, picked up Thalia, and ran towards the Big House. 

Chiron was there, playing pinochle with the satyrs. He took Thalia from Percy’s arms and took her inside without a word. Percy collapsed on the pinochle table. He watched as Will hurried into the Big House, with tousled hair and an Ungrateful Dead shirt. 

Annabeth emerged from the Big House a few hours later. 

“Thalia will be okay.” She said, twisting her necklace in her hands. “She’s sleeping now. What happened?”

“She mentioned a scorpion-armadillo.” Percy recalled. His voice was hoarse. 

“No, not that.” Annabeth pointed at the tree. Even from a distance, Percy could see the blackened branches. 

“It wouldn’t let me in.” He said. “It said I was dangerous.”

“Percy…” Annabeth took a deep breath. “Promise me you’ll try to learn. To control yourself.”

“I will.” he kissed her. “I’ll learn, Wise Girl. I promise.”

That night, Percy Jackson fell asleep in the ocean. It was easier to fall asleep there than in his father’s stuffy cabin. The moon watched as he drifted between his father’s palace and his childhood home. The salt water enfolded him like a second womb as he dreamt of godhood, and manhood, and at last, nothing at all.


	3. Of Home and Hearth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After attacking the boundary at Camp Half-Blood, Percy Jackson must face the consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I've decided to try to stick to ToA's canon even though I haven't finished the series so there might be a few mistakes and stuff, oops. Have a great day :)

Percy Jackson was awoken by an arrow in his gut. He opened his eyes and flailed in the water, a pool of gold gathering around him. By the time his feet met the silt of the ocean, the wound had already closed. Chiron was standing on the shore. His bow was slung over his back. He nodded to Percy as he waded towards him. 

“What was that for?” Percy yawned. 

“It is time for us to talk.” Chiron said. He turned his back to Percy and trotted along the beach. Percy tried to keep up with him. Chiron’s expression was unfamiliar. It made him think of ancient, unformed things. Of the unspeakable things lost in the shadows of time. Percy had never seen him look like that. If he hadn’t known Chiron, he might have attacked him. That thought scared him. Chiron led him towards the woods. There was silence in the spaces between the trees, as if the nymphs had all gone. He motioned for Percy to sit on a fallen log. He sat. Chiron stayed standing. 

“You attacked the camp.” he said. It was not a question. It wasn’t an accusation, either. It was a fact. Percy nodded. He thought he could see tears in Chiron’s eyes, but he wasn’t certain. 

“Percy,” Chiron sighed, “sometimes things happen that even the gods do not understand.”

“You mean what’s happening to me.” Percy said dully. “Hestia said there is a new order forming.”

Chiron nodded. “A new order we are not prepared for. An order we are afraid of. You must understand, the camp exists to protect half-bloods and you…”

“Aren’t a half-blood.” Percy said. 

Chiron nodded. “I fear that until you embrace your divinity, until you settle ranks, the boundary will not allow you to enter.”

“You mean I’m banished.” Percy’s voice stuck in his throat. “I can’t come back.”

“If you had reasoned with the boundary, you might have had a few more years before it deemed you dangerous. As matters stand…”

Percy thought of the blackened, poisoned tree. “I understand.”

The silence was deafening. The whole woods were still, as if holding their breath. 

“It is never easy,” Chiron said. “Teaching heroes. If you’re lucky, they live. If you’re unlucky, they live forever.”

“Teach me, then.” Percy said. “So I can come back.”

“I cannot.” Chiron looked pained. “The gods dislike it when I interfere in matters of divinity. I am merely immortal. I have a purpose.”

“Like Thalia.” Percy muttered. 

“Quite.” Chiron agreed. “You, on the other hand, will become a god. They will try to accustom you to it.”

“The gods?”

Chiron nodded. “Do not expect things to be easier for you now.”

“Things, easier? For me?” Percy scoffed. “I didn’t think so.”

“You will be okay, Perseus Jackson.” Chiron said. “You have wise friends. You are strong. Your journey will not be easy, will not be what you imagined, but perhaps, you will find solace in it.”

Percy got to his feet. “May I say goodbye?” he asked. 

Chiron nodded. “It would be cruel to deprive you of that. Besides, one of these days, you will return.”

Percy knew better than to ask when. Chiron extended his hand, and after a moment Percy reached out and shook it. 

“Some of my heroes,” Chiron said shortly, “I will mentor until they are gone. Others have ventured where I could never go. Good luck, son of Poseidon. May your days be blessed.”

He trotted off into the woods. Percy watched him go, and then went off to find Annabeth. 

Annabeth and Thalia were sitting on the pier of the canoe lake. Percy could hear them giggling from afar, splashing each other with their feet. He sat down on Annabeth’s side. 

“Hi, Jackson,” Thalia said. She looked as if yesterday had only been a bad dream. Her black hair was pulled into a ponytail, and she was wearing ripped jeans and a camo t-shirt. 

“Glad to see you’re better.” Percy smiled. 

“Oh that?” Thalia rolled her eyes. “Twas merely a scratch. You should’ve seen what happened in Wyoming with the exploding buffalo-”

“What did Chiron want?” Annabeth interrupted her. 

“Well…” Percy looked at their reflections in the water. “I can’t come back to camp anymore. Not until… not until I become a real god.”

“What?” Annabeth said. “Chiron can’t do that!”

“He can’t.” Percy agreed. “It has nothing to do with him.”

Annabeth kicked at the water and muttered something foul. 

“It’s okay.” Percy said, although he could feel a lump forming in his throat. “We’ll go back to New Rome for the semester. They’ll let me in, right?”

“Probably,” Annabeth said. “They respect power most of all. The boundary won’t try to stop you there.”  
She sounded bitter. Percy knew that despite how interesting she found New Rome, Annabeth always felt like an outsider there. Now he couldn’t even come back to Camp Half-Blood with her. 

“I’m sorry.” he said. 

“It’s not your fault.” Thalia said suddenly. “That’s what happens to children of the Big Three. We die, or…” she trailed off. Annabeth placed a hand on her shoulder. “We get screwed over.” Thalia finally said. “I just hope Nico…”

“Nico will be okay.” Percy said. “He’s a good kid. And you’ve got the Hunters now.” 

“Yeah,” Thalia said. “I should be getting back to them, eh?”

“Who’s in charge while you’re gone?” Annabeth asked. 

“Reyna.” Thalia grinned. “She’s natural, I tell you.”

“Glad to hear it.” Annabeth said. She turned to Percy. “Do you want to go now?”

“No need.” Percy said. “I’ll meet you in New Rome next week, okay? Take your time here.”

He grinned and kissed her. 

“I’ll come with Percy,” Thalia got to her feet. “He’ll drop me off at Central Station.”

Annabeth bit her lip. Percy could almost see the cogs in her brain turning, trying to find a cure, find a way to keep the two of them together where they belonged, but she didn’t say anything. Thalia hugged her goodbye and promised to visit her in New Rome when the semester began. 

Thalia took Percy by the hand. 

“It’s time to go.” she said firmly. 

When they reached the boundary, the two of them turned back to Camp Half Blood. 

“You’ll be back.” Thalia whispered. Percy took in his home for one last time, savouring the smell of the strawberries, the sound of the pan pipes. 

Goodbye. The grass whispered. Thalia and Percy walked arm and arm towards the car parked at the bottom of the hill. Above them, the tree waved its blackened branches in victory.


	4. Of Wisdom and War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two gods tell Percy Jackson his choices, but he refuses to have his future shaped by either of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank y'all for reading this. You guys rock.

The bus sent Percy Jackson flying across the parking lot. He picked himself from the asphalt, swearing, his bones already knitting themselves together. He’d been distracted by something behind the dumpsters, something dark. He edged towards it, his hand creeping towards his sword, before falling away when he saw it was a vulture, folding its greasy wings. Its red eyes landed on Percy. 

“What do you want?” Percy asked.  
The bird’s feathers shimmered and ripped. In its stead stood a burly man with a leather jacket and black sunglasses.

“Hiya, kid.” His voice was grating, aggressive. It made Percy think of the poison that had coursed through the tree’s limbs back at Camp Half-Blood.

“Ares.” Percy crossed his arms. “Where’s the bike?”

Ares shrugged. “That’s just a parlor trick for the demigods. If you saw it now, you’d be far less impressed.”

Percy had a feeling he was correct. The last couple of times he’d met Ares, he’d wanted to punch a hole in the wall. Now, he just felt his stomach turning in disgust. Ares was looking at him differently, almost respectfully. The thought of being respected by Ares made Percy want to puke. 

“What do you want?” He asked. 

“Me?” Ares pulled out his bowie knife and tossed it in the air. “I’m here to welcome you to the family, cousin.”

“I won’t go on a quest for you.” Percy said flatly. 

Ares’s laugh was so loud it made the dumpsters rattle. He doubled over, guffawing, before wiping away the tears in his eyes. 

“Listen to yourself,” he wheezed. “A quest? You won’t be doing any of that anymore. You’re a god now. Or soon, anyway. I’m here to give you some advice.”

“Why?”

Ares smiled slyly. “Well. The gods don’t always see eye to eye. Especially not when something like this happens. A demigod levelling up. Hasn’t happened in a while. Everyone is going to want a piece of you, cousin. They’ll all want to mold you, teach you, train you, so that you’ll become their ally.”

“You want me to become your ally?” 

“You really do have sea water for brains, don’t you,” Ares mused. “No. I’m here to warn you about the others. You see, I would rather you went solo. It would make it far more interesting.”

It was strange, not being lied to. Percy could tell that for the first time, a god was being forthcoming with him. He wasn’t a pawn but a player. It was almost refreshing. 

“If I have to choose between the gods,” he said, “I’ll choose my father.”

“I’m afraid that’s not an option. Not unless you want to start another war.”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“First of all, Aquaboy, Poseidon won’t be stupid enough to take you in. He already risked his neck by claiming you.” Ares shrugged expressively. “Second of all, both of us know what happens when a god bows too far. They snap. You’re a good weapon.”

“Gee, thanks,” Percy mumbled. 

Ares continued. “I don’t want to see you snap. Plain old destruction is boring. On the other hand, you struggling to make sense of yourself with no guide, will be a beautifully dreadful thing to watch.”

Ares’ eyes glistened. Percy felt a chill running down his spine. He felt like he was watching twin atomic bombs detonate, destroying entire cities. 

“I don’t know what I’ll do yet.” He managed to say. “But my decisions won’t be for your entertainment, or mine.”

Ares sighed. “I thought you’d say something like that.” He shrunk in on himself, getting smaller and smaller until he was just a vulture among the trash again. “But they will, eventually,” Ares squawked. “Just give it a few centuries. The world is unbearably dull, Persaus Jackson, and one day you will find yourself wanting to burn it all down in order to feel the heat on your skin. Not yet. But one day.”

The vulture spread its wings and vanished in the sky. Percy thought about how ungainly it looked, how alone, a single black spot in the heavens. 

Athena found him in a coffee shop in Illinois. Percy was surprised at how long it took him to notice her. He only raised his head to look at her when she cleared her throat and took a sip of her espresso.  
“Hello, Perseus.” she said. 

“You should know that Ares was here before you.” Percy said. 

“I assumed so.” Athena smiled. She was wearing a gray woolen sweater, almost the exact color of her eyes. Her brown hair was tied back in a bun, and she had a pair of wire rimmed glasses on the edge of her nose. 

“I’m here as a visiting faculty member,” she explained. “Enjoying what will probably be my last stint as a history professor. They’re not exactly in high demand these days.”

Percy took a careful bite of his sandwich. He knew some people wore fake glasses to make themselves seem more intelligent, but Athena didn’t need that. Her glasses instead had the effect of making it seem like her eyes were boring into you, like a focused magnifying lense. It was unnerving. 

“I assume Ares explained everything, albeit crudely.” Athena said. “One of us would like to take you in. As a lieutenant, of sorts. Many of the gods have spoken favorably of you.”

“Many?” Percy asked, grinning despite himself. 

“Well,” Athena amended, “many also threatened that if you ever darkened their door they would make you feel excruciating pain, but that’s beside the point. Perseus, I know that we’ve never seen eye to eye but I, myself, have offered to take you in.”

“You?” Percy nearly choked on his sandwich. 

“Perseus…” Athena trailed off. “I really am sorry. It would be a lie to say I wanted you and Annabeth together. I saw you as unworthy of her.”

“This is how you convince me to go with you?” Percy muttered. 

“But, I would also do a great deal to make her happy. She was happy with you. I am sorry it must be taken away.”

“Hang on,” Percy leaned forward. “Was? I intend to spend the rest of our lives together. Or rather, her life.”

Athena sighed. “If you are to choose one of us, you must do it now. We cannot wait to have you corrupted by your own nature. It is not natural for a god to inhabit the world of mortals.”

“Natural or not, I won’t leave Annabeth,” Percy said firmly. “Or the rest of my friends. When I am ready, I will embrace my godhood. Not before.”

Athena raised an eyebrow. “So you will go in Ares’s way, wreaking havoc.”

“I know my track record isn’t great,” Percy admitted, “but I will not wreak havoc. I will learn, at my own pace. I will not interfere with the realm of the gods. When the time is right, I will join you.”

“You, not interfere?” Athena smiled coldly. “You mean well, Perseus. You are completely idiotic, but you mean well. Let it be so. Do what you see fit.” Athena sipped her espresso. “But Perseus, I must warn you. Every hero has a flaw, and you were once a hero. Consider your decisions wisely, for death is not the greatest undoing.”

Percy thought of Thalia’s face as the boundary flickered, thought of the tree blackening, thought of the poison in his gut. He looked at his tuna sandwich. By the time he looked up, Athena was gone. Percy put his sandwich down and paid the bill. He would have to find his way, eventually. He would reckon with his decisions, and his flaws. For now, however, he would go to New Rome. He had a whole life waiting for him there. It just wasn’t necessarily his.


	5. Of Fate and Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico di Angelo emerges from the shadows in order to dwell on the past, but he knows more than he is willing to say.

Percy Jackson felt as though he had been sitting for hours. He knew he should’ve stayed at the train station, but he felt he would suffocate if he stayed inside even a minute longer, so he wandered the streets until he found a bench in the middle of a forgotten park.  
The darkness wrapped careful tendrils around his sneakers. The trees whispered between themselves. Percy found himself fighting to keep his eyes open, even though he had slept plenty on the train. He struggled to his feet. His instincts were still half-blood instincts, and half-bloods did not let their guard down in a fight. As he watched, a man appeared in the shadows, his shoulders hunched. For a moment, between the trees, he looked menacing. Then he raised his hand and waved enthusiastically. 

“Hi there, Jackson.” Nico di Angelo said. “Long time no see.” He pushed his dark hair away from his eyes and strode towards Percy.

“What’s with all the creepy stuff?” Percy asked, grinning. The darkness retreated back to the laps of the trees as Nico sat down on the bench. 

Nico shrugged. “Have to maintain my reputation, don’t I? You look terrible.” He studied Percy as if he was an especially interesting skeleton, and then clapped him on the shoulder. “Going to New Rome?”

“Yeah,” Percy said. “I should probably get back to the station.”

“Don’t you have a car, or a pegasus, or something?” Nico asked. He was wearing a black leather jacket and black jeans. Under the jacket he was wearing a yellow t-shirt. Percy raised an eyebrow when he saw it. 

“What?” Nico grinned. “I’m experimenting with color.”

Percy nodded. “The car’s Annabeth’s. I needed some time to think.” 

“I’m sorry.” Nico sighed, knitting his fingers together. “It must be difficult.”

“How long have you known?” Percy asked. He was used to people knowing things before he did. He was even used to people knowing things about himself before he did. Being a half-blood was like that sometimes. But he’d thought, or at least hoped, this time it would be different. 

“A while.” Nico admitted. “I know death, and the ghosts talk. They know all sorts of things. They have glimpses of the future, sometimes.”

“The ghosts have been talking about me?” Percy looked nervous, hunted. Nico hadn’t thought he’d ever see Percy Jackson so terrified by what the future held. For good reason, Nico thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. 

“Dude, the ghosts still talk about how Annabeth threw Cerebus that ball.” Nico shrugged. “It’s boring in the Underworld, you know.”

Percy bit his lip. “Are you here to tell me something they said?”

“No.” Nico said. He wouldn’t do that to him. “I’m here because I know what it’s like to be completely alone, in a dark situation. I wasn’t immortal, but in Tartarus I was powerful, and my loneliness almost broke me. I thought, a few times, about just joining the monsters. Living with them.”

Percy stared at his sneakers. Sometimes he forgot just what Nico had gone through, just how much he knew. 

“It won’t be easy.” Nico said. “But you can still choose your fate. The darkness will not eat your heart, if you don’t let it in.” 

Nico felt foolish, saying empty words to a man becoming a god, but he couldn’t let Percy feel alone. Terrible things spawned from loneliness. The two of them sat in silence, each pretending to count the cracks in the sidewalk. Nico thought he saw a vulture out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked up, it was gone. 

“Do you think I’ll become like them?” Percy asked suddenly. 

“No.” Nico said resolutely. “Because you’re not. You aren’t made of the same stuff. Maybe this has an explanation. Maybe you are destined for something good.” 

Nico di Angelo had been alive for almost a century, and he was yet to find explanations for anything. But he would do anything for Percy Jackson. Including lie. 

Percy smiled. “I find that hard to believe. But I’m happy you’re here.”

“We’ll be here for a while yet.” Nico said. “Some of us will be around for less, some for more. Some of us are already gone. But our time together has not been taken from you, Percy.”

“I told Athena I will stay here until I am ready.” Percy said. “To join the gods. That might take a while. I just wish… I just wish I could train under my father.”

It was for the best, Nico thought. That way, Percy wouldn’t get involved in a pointless war between the gods. At least, not while he was still around to see it. 

“The gods are prideful creatures.” Nico said. “They will not let Poseidon raise an immortal son under his influence. Zeus probably fears it will give him an unfair advantage, should they fight again.”

“You mean…” Percy trailed off. “They’re afraid of me?”

“They do not understand what is happening.” Nico explained. “Ancient forces are at play here, forces they aren’t familiar with. They do not want to wake up one day to find your father has a super powerful weapon at his disposal.”

Percy winced. It was the second time in a week he had been called a weapon. He tried to convince himself he wasn’t, but the poison burning at the pit of his stomach told him otherwise. 

Nico smiled. “You don’t need anyone to train you. You’ll manage on your own. You know what to do. I have faith in you, Percy. You will lose us. But don’t make us lose you.”

“I won’t.” Percy said resolutely. He got to his feet. “I should get going.”

“I’ll see you soon.” Nico promised. 

He watched as Percy made his way out of the park and shook his head sadly. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Percy what the ghosts, and the gods, had been whispering. 

The Son of Poseidon, the denizens of the Underworld whispered, will lose himself. 

He remembered what the ghosts had told him that morning, as he walked along the banks of the Styx. There will be poison, there will be blood. 

Nico engulfed himself in the shadows again. If what he had heard was correct, if what he had seen in the dark waters of the Underworld had been true, it was better that Percy did not know what was coming. In the near-century Nico di Angelo had been alive, he had never met a stronger person. To watch him collapse into himself would be excruciating. He did not know if he would be able to bear it.


	6. Of Legions and Legends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Percy Jackson arrives at New Rome, he must prepare others for grim possibilities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so first of all good luck to everyone going back to school! stay safe and protect your mental and physical health! 
> 
> second, this contains legit spoilers for Trials of Apollo, so be warned. 
> 
> Third, I noticed recently that my formatting isn't super accessible so I'm going back to old chapters to space out the sentences to make it easier to read, but is there anything else I can change that would make it more accessible for dyslexia/adhd/anything else? i'm new to the format and would really love suggestions because I don't want anyone to struggle with bad formatting, so don't be shy, comment! that's all have a good day!

Percy Jackson felt New Rome before he saw it. The feeling had started on the bus, but got stronger with every step he took towards the entrance. It didn’t feel the same as Camp Half-Blood did. Camp Half-Blood felt like survival, like hope, like singing around a fire in hopes that tomorrow would come. Camp Jupiter felt like the tail end of a dynasty, like an ancient ruin rebuilding itself. Percy had wondered a few times if he would be let in, but the moment he arrived he knew he would. Power called to power.

He didn’t know the newbies at the entrance, but they knew him and let him pass. He smiled and they both blushed. They couldn’t’ve been older than fifteen. He almost found himself asking them if they were doing okay, if they needed help with something, but he figured they would resent it. They were big enough to handle things on their own. Or at least, so they thought. Frank was waiting for him on the other side of the Little Tiber. He waved as Percy carefully splashed through the water. 

“Is Annabeth here?” Percy asked. 

Frank nodded. “She came yesterday on a pegasus. Why, is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Percy smiled, and clapped Frank on the shoulder. He was taller than Percy, and bigger too, now. He’d carried New Rome on his shoulders after Jason died, and had kept carrying it since. 

“I’ll take you to see Hazel if you want,” Frank said. He didn’t say anything else but Percy knew exactly what he meant. He was offering just a few moments of peace, for old times sake, before Percy had to go and face whatever was bothering him. 

Percy grinned. “That would be great.”

New Rome hadn’t changed. Teenagers were running around in armor, lugging swords behind them. A girl who couldn’t have been older than twelve tripped over her own feet and fell to the cobblestones. Percy offered her a hand, which she adamantly refused before scurrying away. 

“I know,” Frank said when she had gone. “They’re just kids.” He squared his shoulders. “But we have to protect the city. We have to protect Rome.”

Percy watched as the girl caught up with her friends. He’d been happy here. But he also couldn’t forget the way Gwen had been skewered in a war game. He couldn’t forget Jason, born and bred in New Rome, and how he hadn’t come home. 

“It’s the best way.” Frank said, leading him to the praetor’s offices. “Being a half-blood is dangerous, Percy. Who knows what might happen next?”

Me, Percy thought. I could happen to them next. Maybe not today, not tomorrow, but one of these days, it could be me charging at a bunch of frightened kids with hero complexes. He waved that thought away when he saw Hazel. She was sitting primly at her desk, mulling over a bunch of papers that needed signing. The only thing that seemed out of place was the giant roan horse, standing sternly in the corner of the room. 

“Arion!” Percy said, “long time no see!” The horse returned the greeting, with a few curse words for measure. 

“I see how it is,” Hazel said, getting to her feet, “you missed the horse more than me.”

“Never.” Percy gave her a hug. She smelled of cinnamon, and just being in the same room with her made Percy feel calmer. He felt her golden eyes studying him when they broke apart, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to have a brief respite from his problems, at least, not today. 

I’ll explain later, he mouthed. Of course Hazel had noticed. She had spent enough time in the Underworld. Maybe Nico had even told her part of it, although Percy doubted it. Whatever Nico knew, he would keep buried deep inside him until the day he died. 

“Frank, the guys at the Fifth Legion need some help with tomorrow’s war game. More specifically, how to do it in a flooded stadium.” 

Percy raised an eyebrow. Frank shrugged. “Hey, we have to prepare for climate change, don’t we?” He hurried out. 

Hazel grabbed Percy’s hand. “Now, let’s have whatever depressing chat we need to have somewhere that has food.”

Twenty minutes later, they were eating the best muffins in the world on a bench that overlooked New Rome. 

“I met your brother.” Percy said. “He told me that the ghosts have been talking shit about me.”

“Don’t take it personally.” Hazel said. “You make it too easy.”

Percy took another bite of his muffin. “You’ve noticed, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” Hazel said. She’d noticed from the very beginning, actually. She’d thought, then, that she had been young and impressionable, but she knew now that it hadn’t been like that at all. Juno had given her a glimpse into the future, had made Percy Jackson’s aura shine, so that she’d be prepared, though for what, she wasn’t sure. 

“I’ll be here, in New Rome, in the beginning.” Percy promised. “With Annabeth. But we should start preparing, just in case.”

“For what?” Hazel asked, apprehension climbing up her throat. 

“I can’t harm New Rome.” Percy said miserably, looking at his hands. “Camp Half-Blood… well, the boundary made short work of me. I won’t have to worry about bringing it up in flames, but this place...”

Hazel wanted to break into tears and hug him, but instead she remained dignified. 

“So, what do you suggest?”

“Your water sources.” Percy said. “You need to install quality checks in the drinking water. Your sewers, any large pipes, you need to shore up. You’ll have to move the barracks uphill, away from the main line. No more war games there, either.” The two of them grinned momentarily, remembering their first war game. 

“You have time.” Percy said. “Decades, centuries, maybe. But the praetors after you have to take it seriously.”

“They will.” Hazel said, gripping her spatha. She’d grown so much. He remembered her at thirteen, queasy at the thought of facing an unbearable past. Now she was ready to face an unbearable future. 

“We’ll be ready.” She leveled her gaze at him. “Now come on. You’ve avoided Annabeth for long enough.”

Hazel brought Percy to the door of his and Annabeth’s shared apartment in the city, and then left, claiming she had things to do. Percy watched her retreating back and then walked in to find Annabeth reading a textbook the size of her head.

“Good to see you, Seaweed Brain. School starts soon, or have you forgotten?” Annabeth asked from the couch. 

“I haven’t,” Percy said. He sat down next to Annabeth. “I’ve spoken to some people. Made a few plans.”

“And what might those be?” Annabeth looked up from her book, her gray eyes fixed on Percy. He wondered if she knew Athena had spoken to him.

“I’ll be staying in New Rome, of course.” Percy smiled. “For the rest of your life.”

Annabeth put down her book. “I always thought it would be plural,” she murmured. “But very well, Seaweed Brain. Here, together, is good enough for me.”

That night, Annabeth Chase studied her boyfriend as he slept. She had spent her whole architectural career fortifying things to stop them from falling apart, glimpsing the reflections of false futures in the shattered glass of fallen empires. She ran her fingers through Percy’s hair and hoped that what she’d done would be enough to save them from the debris.


	7. Of Secrets and Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson struggles to overcome his fatal flaw, and discovers things about Jason Grace's past.

Percy Jackson had forgotten what it felt like to be in the wolves’ territory. The first time he’d been in Lupa’s woods, Hera had left him there, against his own will. This time, he had come willingly, but he still felt vulnerable, outnumbered. He didn’t know how to find what he was looking for, but he figured it was only a matter of time before they found him, so he sat down on a tree log and waited. It wasn’t long before a wolf emerged silently from the bushes. 

“So.” The wolf said. “You have returned.”

“Yes.” Percy replied. 

Lupa’s eyes glinted yellow. Chiron had once described Lupa as his counterpart, but she was Chiron’s complete opposite. Lupa was a creature of the hunt, of death, of power. She had started an empire by raising two brothers to kill one another. She was not afraid of him. She was not afraid of anyone. 

“I taught you to be a hero.” Lupa said coldly. 

“I know.” Percy got to his feet. “But I still have things to learn.”

Lupa sniffed him and bared her teeth. 

“Tricks upon tricks.” she growled. “Layers upon layers. I see, Perseus Jackson.” She circled him, once, as if considering devouring him. Then she yawned, to show off her pointy, white teeth. 

“I’m not afraid of you.” Percy said. 

“Good.” Lupa smiled. “You shouldn’t be. You are far too powerful to be afraid of anyone but yourself. Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes.” Percy stared at his hands. “I need your help.”

“You are Greek.” Lupa muttered distastefully. “So you play by different rules. I assume you have been informed of your fatal flaw. The flaw is your undoing, no matter if you become a god or a corpse. That is what you must fear.”

“I’ve been told I’m too loyal.” Percy felt the words stick to his throat. “I would never betray my friends.”

“No doubt that loyalty pushed you to threaten the Greek camp.” The she-wolf said, pacing. “No doubt it will make you do much worse, in the future.”

“How do I overcome it?” Percy asked. 

“You don’t. But you can learn.” Lupa tilted her head. “You’re not done questing yet. Go forth and find the son of Jupiter’s cave. Face its guardian.”

“The son of Jupiter?” Percy asked. “You mean, Jason?” 

Lupa didn’t reply. She bowed her head towards Percy and disappeared into the undergrowth. 

“Okay, then.” Percy said to no one in particular. “Quest time it is.” 

Percy found that he was almost enjoying himself. He didn’t like to admit it, but there was a certain simplicity to fetching something, fighting on the way, and being home in time for dinner. It reminded him of better days. Then he realized that whatever he was going to face had successfully scared off Lupa and the pack. He wondered what monster that could invade Lupa’s territory, this close to Camp Jupiter. Maybe the whole thing was a trick. That was standard procedure, for quests. Percy shrugged. He’d chosen to come here, after all. He could’ve stayed with Annabeth, who was busy designing a library in New Rome. Instead he was slogging through the woods, looking for a cave. 

“Really loyal,” Percy muttered to himself. He came to a stop. Ahead of him was a cave. He tilted his head. 

“This can’t be right.” He whispered. 

The cave looked… welcoming. Almost homely. It emitted a faint golden glow, and it made Percy want to curl up and take a nap. Nothing was guarding the entrance, except for a few trees. 

Percy looked around nervously and almost jumped out of his skin. A man was standing where there hadn’t been anyone a moment ago, as if he had sprung up from the earth. Percy uncapped his sword, and the man raised his hands placatingly. 

“Whoa, there.” he said. “I’m not going to stop you.”

On second glance, the man really did look like he had sprung from the earth. His skin looked like he had been carved from gray rock. His black hair was a stone slab. He was muscled, like a wrestler. Rocky the wrestler, Percy chuckled to himself. 

“I don’t have to protect the place anymore, now that the kid is gone.” the man said. His voice was deep, and it reverberated, as if his vocal cords were in the center of the earth. “I’m just here to warn you. The guardian of this place… she’s crazy. Went mad after the boy died.”

“Jason?” Percy asked. 

The look in the man’s eyes softened. “Yeah. Him. I didn’t think he’d remember us, you know, the kids usually don’t but somehow, he did. Came by to visit us, when he was all grown.” The man’s shoulders slumped. “Maybe it would’ve been better if he’d stayed away.”

“Who are you?” Percy asked, lowering the sword. 

The man stiffened. “She’s coming. You better get out of here.” He melted into the earth, becoming one with the rock. 

Percy looked around. The woods seemed empty. Whatever woman Rocky had been talking about hadn’t arrived yet. He probably had time to explore what this was all about before she showed up. Sword in hand, he ducked under the branches and stepped into the cave. 

His first impression had been correct. The cave was like a home. There was a box filled with toys. A wooden sword on a low table. A bed tucked in the corner, as if for a young child. There was also a pile of straw in the other corner. The room flickered with warm lantern light, although Percy couldn’t see a lantern. 

Something snorted behind him. Percy turned around and raised his sword, to find a goat standing in the doorway. 

“Um, hi.” He said. “Is this your place?”

The goat lowered his horns at him. “Didn’t the Curetes warn you away?” 

“Um, you mean Rocky?” Percy asked. “Yeah, he did say something about a crazy woman. Wait. You’re a goat. A female goat.”

The goat pawned her foot against the floor of the cave. “Yes, fool. Why are you here?”

“Well,” Percy said, “I was a friend of Jason’s. Did you know him?”

The goat laughed, or at least, it made a sound Percy thought was a laugh. 

“I raised him.” she said. “Lupa gave him to me, to raise before she trained him and sent him to New Rome." 

"So," Percy grinned, "you were his nanny?" 

Amaltheia narrowed her eyes. "Very funny. I assume you’re from New Rome?”

“Yes,” Percy said. 

The goat lowered her head again. 

“Then it’s time I killed you.” She charged forward. Percy had time to his obituary before slashing at the goat’s horn. The left one broke, and a sticky yellow substance that looked like honey spilled out. The goat stumbled around as the honey filled her eyes. 

“Wait a moment.” Percy said edging towards the entrance. “I know who you are. You’re the goat that raised Zeus. Amaltheia.”

“It’s nice to know people remember me.” Amaltheia said, turning towards his voice. 

“But you’re good. Why would you want to kill me?” 

“You let my Jason die.” Amaltheia bleated. “Just as each and every one of my wards did. Well, except for Zeus. But he doesn’t visit. He doesn’t even Iris-message.”

“Well, I’m sure he’s very busy,” Percy said. “I’m sorry about Jason too. He was like a brother to me.”

“You’re still alive,” Amalthea said. She opened both eyes and charged. Percy was too slow. Her remaining horn went right through his chest. He felt himself stop breathing for a moment, and then the wound began to knit itself up. Golden ichor slowly dripped to the ground. The goat shook her head wildly and the second horn cracked off her head. She crumpled onto the floor and started bleating pitifully. 

“Why you? Why not him?”

Percy sat down next to her. 

“I don’t want it.” he said. “I doubt Jason would’ve wanted it either. I’m sorry, Amaltheia, I really am.”

“He was happy here.” Amaltheia said mournfully. “He was loved for, and cared for.”

Percy took a deep breath and tugged the horn out of his chest. It didn’t even hurt. 

“Here you go. I know his sister would really appreciate how well you took care of him.”

“His sister loved him.” Amaltheia said thoughtfully. “I’m sad she missed his childhood. I’m sad she never got to see how well I took care of him. I tried to protect her too, you know. I led her to her friends, but she wasn't my ward. I’m glad they lived to meet each other.”

“Me too,” Percy said. Then he got up and left the golden cave behind, doing his best to refrain from crying. 

Lupa was waiting for him. 

“You didn’t kill her.” she said. 

Percy shrugged. “Well, she didn’t kill me. So we’re even.”

Lupa lowered her head. 

“I hope you understand what you must do now. Amaltheia is fragile. She cannot be reminded of her dead ward. As for his friends, they have dealt with his death for long enough. It would hurt them to hear about this.”

“It would help them.” Percy disagreed. “If they knew how much he was loved.” 

“How would you know?” Lupa bared her teeth. “From now on, you will be privy to power, to knowledge, that your friends will not be able to cope with. You must know how to contain it.”

This was the test. This was how he would unlearn his fatal flaw. By keeping secrets from his friends. He couldn’t afford to fail it. Percy Jackson bowed his head. 

“Yes, Lupa.” he said. 

“You have a visitor,” She said. She turned her head and disappeared into the brush. Percy kept on walking, heart heavy. He knew who he would meet. 

“Hiya, Jackson.” Thalia said from behind him, bow in hand. “Long time no see. What are you doing here?”

Percy sighed and turned to face Jason’s sister. “Nothing.” He said. “Absolutely nothing at all.”


	8. Of Life and Legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Annabeth talk of the future.

Percy Jackson watched the sunset with his wife. 

Annabeth was sitting with one arm over the side of the boat, her fingers brushing against the tops of the waves. They were miles away from shore, but the ocean was calm, and the boat glided over the water. 

“It’s beautiful,” Annabeth said. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. In the dying light, she was cast in a golden glow. 

“It is.” Percy said, looking at her. He leaned against her shoulder. The boat was tiny, hardly wide enough for the two of them to sit side by side. It was called the Pax 2, and was New Rome’s entire navy. It was reassuring that some things never changed. 

“The library is almost finished,” Annabeth said, her fingers wrapped around Percy’s. New Rome’s library’s construction had started five years ago, when they were still students. Annabeth had been working on it day and night since. 

“What are you going to do after it’s done?” Percy asked, snuggling against her. 

Annabeth was silent for a moment. 

“New Rome is a good place.” She finally said. “A safe place.”

“Don’t worry about the danger. It’s nothing we can’t handle.” Percy said, squeezing her hand. 

Things came and went, of course, apocalypses narrowly avoided, deadlines dangerously close to not being fulfilled, but nothing serious had come up in a while. A lull, Chiron had told Annabeth when she’d last visited Camp Half-Blood. Perfectly natural, he’d assured her. Percy couldn’t help but think that a lull only meant something big was approaching, but he didn’t dare say it. There was nothing hinting at anything rising, anything stirring. Except for him, of course. 

“I don’t mean for us,” Annabeth said. “For a family.”

Percy fell silent. The waves rocked against the boat like warnings. There were things that had to be said, things that had to be spoken, now, before it was too late. 

“Annabeth,” he started, carefully. “You remember that I spoke with Athena.”

Annabeth nodded. 

“I told her I would leave the world of mortals behind, after you were dead.” It was almost too difficult to say, the words dragging against his lips. He couldn’t imagine a world without Annabeth at his side. 

“What do you mean?” Annabeth asked. 

“If we… if we start a family, I will be the best father I can possibly be, but Annabeth, once you are gone, I won’t be able to stay here.”

Annabeth’s eyes filled with anger. “Not even for your own child?”

Percy took a deep breath. He could hear the hurt bubbling up in her chest, the pain in her voice. He wanted a family. But he was not mortal, and he could not ignore it. 

“I am too loyal.” Percy said, clenching the hand that wasn’t holding Annabeth’s into a fist. “Annabeth, if I have to stay here, impossibly powerful, mourning, without you, I will be dangerous.”

“Not to our children.” Annabeth said. 

“No.” Percy agreed. “Not to our children. Never that. To others, though. To New Rome, to Camp Half-Blood, to random mortals. I don’t know what I will be capable of, but believe me when I say, it could be terrible.”

Annabeth studied him. She’d always known Percy was dangerous, right from the beginning. He had something coiled up inside him that she had hoped would never be unleashed. Now that it had, she realized he was painfully aware of the damage he could do. He knew he could be led to destroy everything he had ever loved. 

Annabeth took a deep breath. “You remember, don’t you, what it felt like, being abandoned?”

Percy thought of the phone calls he had wished for, the letters, and then later, the blessings he had hoped for and never gotten. He remembered that day on Olympus, newly sixteen, giving up immortality for the promise that the gods send one measly sign. He felt the tears roll down his face. 

“I remember.” He said. “I understand. But they will not be young.” 

He looked at her to show he meant it, and Annabeth knew he did. She knew he would walk down to the Underworld to bring her back, that he would bring down the whole world if she was gone before her time. It scared her, the way his green eyes bored into hers, the power packed into his irises. 

“It hurts when you’re older too,” Annabeth smiled wryly. Her father had died before their wedding, had left Annabeth his collection of aviation goggles and historic war models. 

“I know.” Percy said. He took a deep breath. “I’d understand, you know, if you don’t want to have children. If you don’t want to raise them with me.”

Annabeth punched him in the ribs. 

“How dare you suggest that,” she muttered. “Having a family with you was one of the only things I’ve ever wanted.”

The boat bobbed in the water. Annabeth looked ahead, at the horizon, with a steely gaze. The older she got, the more things she realized she didn’t know. She did not know what would happen to Percy Jackson without her. She did not know how he lived, every day, with the weight of the never ending future inside his chest. 

“When we were younger, I was sure we’d die together, in a battle, side by side. Then I realized we might grow up, grow old. I should’ve known that was too good to be true. But we still have a chance, Percy, to live.”

She turned to him. “You do whatever you have to do to protect us. I trust you.”

For a brief moment, Percy Jackson smiled. He tugged at his Hawaiian shirt, and kissed Annabeth on the forehead. Then his face returned to that of a doomed man, though he was no man at all, fears scuttling across his eyes as he watched the horizon.   
There would be time for him to come to terms with his fate, Annabeth thought. To grow, to help, to raise. For now, what they had was enough. The two of them drifted on the water as the sun vanished behind the waves, the darkness bringing with it stars, the wind bringing with it change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my thoughts are with all the people affected by the fires in the west coast. wishing everyone health and safety.


	9. Of Birth and Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annabeth gives birth, and Percy gets a few unexpected guests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided things were getting sad too quickly in this fic so this one's a happy one.

Percy Jackson had encountered many horrors, but he’d never been as apprehensive of something as he was of childbirth. Annabeth was ready. She’d read five different guides, two in dead languages. She’d packed a bag for the hospital, even though it wasn’t far from their New Rome apartment. She’d been reading Goodnight Moon and The Odyssey to the baby interchangeably for months. When the contractions began to grow closer, she was drawing something in her notebook, a complex design she wanted to implement on Olympus. She put her hand to her stomach. 

“Has it started?” Percy asked nervously, glancing up from his careful assembling of yet another toy. 

“I think so.” Annabeth said. “It’ll be time to go soon, let me just-” she bent over her drawing and penciled in a few more careful lines. 

“Have you got everything?” She asked, using the desk to help her stand upright. 

Percy picked up the backpack next to the door and grabbed Annabeth’s hand. 

“Yep.” He said. “Let’s go, Wise Girl.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes and followed him carefully into the elevator.

The hospital in New Rome was brand new, and manned with nymphs, cloud spirits, and the occasional faun. Camp Jupiter had its own infirmary, but Annabeth was grateful for the hospital. She didn’t want to give birth next to a bunch of bloodied-up teenagers. A nymph nurse escorted Annabeth to her room. 

“There’s still some time, darling,” she said, handing her a cup of water. “Make yourself comfortable.” 

Annabeth took a sip of water. A few moments later, something creaked, groaned, and crashed to the ground outside. Percy ran to look out the window, where a dust cloud was forming. At first, his hand reached to where his weapon wasn’t. Then he saw the creature wave its wings, and two people stumbling out of the dust. 

“What’s that?” Annabeth asked, peering from the bed. 

“Don’t worry,” Percy grinned. “It’s just our good old friends, making a fuss.”

Leo and Piper were shown into the room a few minutes later by a scowling nurse. 

“Dude!” Leo said, giving Percy a hug.   
The older he got, the more he looked like an ageing wacky inventor. His welding goggles were permanently perched on his head, and he still had his tool belt around his cargo pants. Percy sometimes thought it was too bad he’s never gotten to meet Dedalus. 

“Sorry about the landing. Sleepy’s still learning how to use his wings.”

Piper rushed towards Annabeth. “How are you doing?” she asked. 

“Okay, so far,” Annabeth smiled, giving her a hug. “Leo, maybe you should start calling your dragons names that actually describe them, like Crashy.”

“Hey,” Leo crossed his grease-stained arms. “This is the first time it’s happened.”

Annabeth opened her mouth to retort but instead let out a squeak of pain. The nurse came in from the hallway and shooed Piper and Leo out.

“I’m staying here,” Percy said firmly. 

Annabeth had laughed at him the first time he’d told her he wanted to stay, but he was glad he insisted. Annabeth’s face was screwed up in pain. Percy couldn’t’ve been able to leave her like this, even in the hands of the nymphs, which Hazel had assured him were highly competent and cool-headed under pressure, most of them having assisted Aelous at some point in their lives. The nymph shot him a judgemental look and sat him down in a chair, just close enough so that he could hold Annabeth’s hand.

Percy didn’t know a lot about giving birth, but the situation unfolded much like a battlefield. The nymphs knew what they were doing, and so did Annabeth, which made Percy the only one who didn’t know what was going on. That was okay. He was used to it. He held Annabeth’s hand. 

“Would have been a lot easier if it came from your head, huh?” he smirked. “Like you.”

“Shut up,” Annabeth muttered. 

The baby girl was 5.6 pounds, according to the nurse, not that Percy knew what that meant, but in his arms she was somehow the lightest thing he’d ever held and the weight of the sky. He sang her to sleep as Annabeth dozed off, clutching the pillow. The nurses had gone. Once in a while, one would come in to look at him suspiciously before walking off. He could hear Leo and Piper outside, but they could wait until Annabeth woke up. It had been a long time since they were all together again. 

A sea breeze fluttered in through the open window. Percy looked up to see a man in a Hawaiin shirt and sandals smiling. 

“Dad.” he felt his voice stick in his throat. He hadn’t seen Poseidon in years, not since he had been informed of his destiny. 

“Percy.” Poseidon beamed. “I am sorry I could not come and see you earlier. Zeus would not allow it. He fears I would utilize you against him, but I do not think he would begrudge me to see my grandchild.”

Poseidon took a step closer, bringing with him a smell of the sea. “A beautiful girl. A powerful one. Take care of her, Percy.”

“I will.” Percy said. “Dad, are the gods really afraid of me? Do they… do you know something I don’t?”

Poseidon shook his head. “The gods are afraid of what they are not familiar with. All they know of you is that you are my son, my powerful son. But have no fear, Percy. I am certain you will make the right decisions. Some of them will hurt, at first, but you are on the right path.”

“You mean, the path in which I abandon my daughter.” Percy muttered. 

“Gods cannot always stay,” Poseidon sighed. “I know that as well as anyone. You have a brief respite, a few more decades. If you do things right, your daughter will not hate you for it. I know you will do things right, Percy. I will see you again, son.” 

He leaned over and kissed the baby on the forehead. Then he was gone.

Percy held his daughter tight, glanced at Annabeth, and stepped into the hallway. Leo and Piper got to their feet. 

“She’s gorgeous.” Leo said reverently. The baby stared at him with big, gray eyes.

“Is everything okay?” Piper asked, looking at Percy. He nodded. He hadn’t told either of them yet. He knew the day he’d have to come clean to them and Frank was close. But not today. Not yet. 

“Have you thought of a name?” Leo rubbed his hands together. “I’ve got a really great one in mind, starts with an L and ends with an O.”

“We haven’t decided.” Percy said. “There are a lot of people we want to honor.”

Piper nodded. Her long, brown, gray-streaked hair was up in a bun, and she’d recent;y gotten a pair of stern looking glasses. She’d spent the last couple of years mentoring Cherokee artists with her dad, and Percy had seen her a couple of times on national TV, fighting for the arts and for human rights, her voice convincing without even a drop of charmspeak. She looked so confident every time she spoke. 

“You’ll figure it out.” she said, resolutely, and Percy nodded back. They’d figure it out. They always did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Ruth Bader Ginsburg. May her memory be a revolution.


	10. Of Temples and Turmoil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson introduces his daughter to the gods. Little does he know Nico di Angelo is watching from the shadows, his heart full of secrets.

Percy Jackson was a big believer in practical education. The sun was shining, and the breeze brought with it the smell of the sea. Annabeth was in New York, overseeing the construction of a monument at Camp Half-Blood. It was the sort of day that called for a walk, or, as Percy’s daughter called it, a field trip. 

“My track record for field trips is pretty bad, Penny,” Percy said, holding his daughter’s hand as they walked through the streets of New Rome. 

Penny smiled back, revealing two missing teeth. She was five years old. When fall came, in a few months, she would start kindergarten at the school in New Rome. She was wearing a puffy skirt and a blue shirt with a clam on it. Leo had a habit of sending her shirts with ocean-related puns. This one read: DON’T BE SHELLFISH. 

“That doesn’t matter,” she said confidently. Her black hair bounced as she walked. “This one will be a good one.”

They climbed up the hill, towards the temples. Percy hadn’t been there in years. There were too many bad memories, of Octavius the bully killing his stuffed panda, of Jason Grace and his passion for temple-building. But his daughter had been asking about the temples for months now. It was time, Percy thought, to acquaint her with the terrible family she was part of, also known as the gods. Jupiter’s temple was first. Percy’s daughter stared at it in awe, pointing with a small finger. 

“Jupiter,” Percy said, leading her inside, “king of the gods.”

There were two scrawny kids inside, reverently cleaning one of the statues. Percy waved, and they waved back shyly. He recognized them, had given their cohort a sword-fighting lesson a few weeks ago. They waited until they thought he wasn’t looking and then hurried away. 

“Where is Jupiter?” Percy’s daughter looked around the marble pillars, as if expecting the god to be hiding behind them. When she had been born, Percy and Annabeth had thought they would name her for one of the dead, but she was so alive, so happy, neither of them could bear to saddle her with a name full of loss. It was Chiron who had decided she looked like Penelope, had told them to name her after Odysseus’s clever wife, who had lived a long and happy life. 

“He doesn’t live here,” Percy said. “This is just a place where people are nice to him. Sometimes they leave him presents.”

“Does he say thank you?” Penny asked. She gazed at the statue of Jupiter with the master bolt in awe. 

Percy shrugged. “Sometimes.”

They left the temple, and headed towards Neptune’s hut. Percy looked over his shoulder. He had a feeling someone was watching him, but he was dazzled by the sun, and the shadows were just darkness. 

In the doorway of Pluto’s temple, a man with black hair stood quietly. He had been about to call out to Percy, to greet him, but instead he kept his silence. Nico di Angelo watched Percy and his daughter stroll in the sun, thinking of what the ghosts had last told him. They had mentioned something he had once been proud of, something he thought he had done for the best. They told him it had been a mistake. A curse, that would cause Percy Jackson to do terrible things. He desperately hoped they were wrong. But he doubted it. Ghosts were seldom wrong. So he kept his silence, and watched. 

“This is Neptune’s temple.” Percy said, patting the gray wall. It had been freshened up since the first time he’d been here, as a confused and amnesiac teenager. It had a more artistic look to it, now. “He’s my dad, so he’s your grandad.”

“Huh.” his daughter said. “Does he take you on field trips?”

“No.” Percy admitted. “The last time I saw him was when you were born.”

“That’s a long time ago.” Penny said. 

“Well, it wasn’t that long ago. It was just five years. There were times when I didn’t see him for far longer.”

“That’s sad.” Penny declared. She stared at Neptune’s hut. 

“Sometimes,” Percy said. “The gods are busy. They can’t always come visit, even if they want to. That doesn’t mean…. That doesn’t mean they love you any less.”

He bit his lip as his daughter opened the door to Neptune’s temple and peered inside. He let her run her fingers over the offerings and try to pry shells from the walls, grateful that she wasn’t looking at him, couldn’t see his expression. 

Nico di Angelo slipped away in the other direction, walking briskly. Percy Jackson was too occupied with his daughter to see him go. He felt his heart hammering in his chest. Nico had made a terrible mistake, when Thanatos had been chained. He should have known. There were rules, to everything, and consequences. Death was not to be trifled with. He had made a mistake, and at the end of the day, the curse he had caused would make Percy Jackson lose control. At the end of the day, what he had done would hurt those he loved more than anything. 

There will be poison, there will be blood.

That was what the ghosts had whispered, and Nico knew it to be true.


	11. Of Flight and Farewell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Annabeth send their child off to Camp Half-Blood, and can only hope that she'll be safe.

Percy Jackson wasn’t a fan of flying metal dragons. They were okay, he supposed, for people who were fans of heights, leaky valves, and spontaneous combustion, or, in other words, Leo Valdez. Leo had insisted to give Penny and him a ride to New York, and Penny was so enamoured by Leo’s new flying friend, christened Sneezy, that Percy couldn’t refuse. 

“One day,” Penny said as she clambered up Sneezy’s spine, “you’ll have all seven dwarves.”

Leo beamed, his greying hair glinting in the sun. “Finally someone who understands me.”

The dragons were getting more elaborate. This one had seats built into its spine, so that each rider had their own personal space. Penny carefully stowed her backpack in the compartment and looked down to Percy, who was making his way up the spine. 

“Isn’t this the coolest?” she said. 

Percy nodded. He couldn’t ignore the knot forming in his chest. They were going to fly out to New York, and Penny would join the ranks of Camp Half-Blood. He knew, logically, that she was the same age he had been when he’d first arrived, but it seemed so young all of a sudden. Chiron had assured Annabeth that in recent years the number of quests had been minimal, the number of attacks small, but Percy couldn’t ignore the voice in his head warning him that this was a terrible mistake, that he needed to keep his daughter close. 

“Let’s go!” Leo clapped his hands together. The dragon raised its massive wings and they were off. 

Penny leaned out of her seat, trying to get a glimpse of New Rome, and Percy caught the back of her shirt. 

“Careful,” he muttered. 

Penny sent him a disarming smile. “I am careful! And besides, dad, I’m not stupid. I won’t fall off!” She returned her gaze to the ground below, delighted by the peril. 

Percy remembered when he’d been like that. At least Penny had Annabeth’s brains. She really wasn’t stupid. But even Annabeth had done stupid things back then, gone on quests with him, for example. 

Percy couldn’t image what he’d do if a god sent his daughter on a stupid quest. He'd probably show up and throw hands. He knew Chiron would take good care of Penny, teach her all she had to know as a demigod, even if she didn’t fully understand she was one, but the gods could be so cruel, so petty and apathetic. What if one of them decided to do something on whim, to start a war, to endanger the camp? It happened almost every year when he was there. Percy tried to shake the thought out of his head. He was more powerful now, more respected. He could fight on Penny’s behalf. The fact he could still fly through Zeus’s domain meant that he still enjoyed certain privileges, and if he needed to use them, he would. But he also knew that anything could happen at Camp Half-Blood. To anyone, including his daughter, and there was nothing he could do about it. 

Leo was sitting behind him, in the driver’s compartment, full of wires and loose snacks. It made it hard for Percy to study him. He hadn’t seen Leo in a while. He was always moving, always travelling, him and his metal dragon. A boy and his box, off to see the universe. He seemed happy, though, confident. Leo caught Percy’s eye and grinned. 

“What’s up, pal?”

Percy grinned back. “It’s good to see you. Time marches on, doesn’t it?”

Leo pushed his curls away from his face. “Indeed it does.”

They reached the boundary that evening. Sneezy the dragon settled down on the hill, and Percy helped Penny off its back. Annabeth was waiting for them, and so was Sally. 

“Grandma?” Penny ran towards her, arms outstretched. “What are you doing here?”

“You mom picked me up,” Sally replied, hugging her granddaughter. “It’s lovely to see you, sweetheart. I’m just here to send you off. It was different when I sent Percy off, you know. I didn’t really have time to do it properly.”

Penny nodded gravely. “I heard the story, grandma. Don’t worry. I won’t get you in that kind of trouble.”

Sally laughed. Annabeth ruffled Penny’s hair and walked over to Percy and Leo. 

“How was Olympus?” he asked her. She rolled her eyes and muttered a few extremely rude things. The three of them chuckled. 

“They’re all obsessed with you,” she whispered to Percy when Leo had his back turned, fiddling with something. “It’s kind of weird, like they’re discussing a new kid.”

“You know me,” Percy shrugged. “I’m just the absolute coolest.”

Penny hefted her backpack over her shoulder. 

“Okay.” she said, lifting her chin high. “I’m ready to go.”

“Don’t you want me to come with you to the Big House?” Annabeth asked. 

Penny shook her head. “No. It’s time I do this alone. Bye, everyone! I’ll miss you!” She squared her shoulders and took a step past the boundary.

Annabeth and Percy stood together and watched her go, her black hair shining in the sun, walking without looking back. 

“She’ll be safe.” Annabeth promised. “She’s strong.”

“Yeah.” Percy said. He could feel something clawing at his throat. He looked over the valley, as his little girl walked away into a precarious world no-one was ever ready for, and raised a hand in goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been sick so this one is a tad less polished but i've got some devious plotlines stewing I promise


	12. Of Wilderness and Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy meets an old friend with a few ideas regarding his future.

Percy Jackson had a love-hate relationship with Central Park. On the one hand, it was peaceful and green, compared to the city around it. On the other, he couldn’t help but think about the fact that the ground he was standing on had once been covered with monster dust and his friends’ blood. Annabeth was at Olympus, making sure her measurements and designs were up to date. She’d asked Percy if he wanted to come, but he’d declined. He didn’t want the gods staring at him, testing him, asking him questions. He preferred to stay in the city. His city, New York. He’d missed it, these past couple of years in New Rome. Percy promised his mother he’d swing by her new apartment later, to make blue cookies with Estelle, but he had things to attend to, here, in the park. He'd received a message yesterday from an old friend, one he knew he couldn't ignore. 

It was Grover who spotted him first. 

“Percy!” he bleated, trotting up to him. He was wearing a black top hat and a shirt that said SAVE THE EARTH, IT’S THE ONLY PLANET WITH TACOS. His red hair curled from underneath the hat’s brim. 

“G-man!” Percy sprang to his feet and gave Grover a big hug. He smelled like cheese and freshly-cut grass. It had been ages since they’d last met. Grover was so busy, taking care of nature, trying to save the last wild places, that they kept missing each other, getting together only when their paths crossed. 

“It’s so good to see you,” Grover said, settling down on the ground. He seemed more at ease than he’d used to, calmer somehow, as if he understood something Percy didn’t. “How’s Penny?”

“She’s good.” Percy said. “She started camp yesterday.”

Grover nodded. “Time goes by fast,” he said dreamily. “She’ll be fine. Did you warn her about the lava wall?”

“The lava wall is still there?” Percy asked, crumpling a blade of grass between his fingers. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Grover reasoned. He pulled a flattened tin can out of his jeans pocket and chewed on it. “Which reminds me, when will you be able to come back?”

Percy shrugged. “When I become a god, I guess. I’m kind of half-way, now, so the boundary doesn’t trust me.”

“That sucks.” Grover said pensively, taking another bite out of his tin can. "Everyone at camp misses you so much."

“I miss them too." Percy sighed. "What was camp like? Before, you know, everything went sideways? Before the Titans, and Gaia, and those weird, dead Romans?”

“The same,” Grover replied. “Camp Half-Blood hasn’t changed in a long time, Percy. Heroes have to learn to be heroes one way or another, you know. There’s always another crisis. It’s for their learning benefit. To prepare them.”

Them. Not him, Percy thought. Grover knew. The two of them sat in silence. Grover fiddled with his top hat for a moment. “I know, um, what’s happening to you, Percy.”

“I figured.” Percy replied glumly. A squirrel ran up to Grover and climbed up his shirt. Grover swatted at it half-heartedly. 

“I didn’t mean to know,” Grover explained. “But, our link… I could kind of feel it, you know?”

“What’ll happen to it,” Percy asked, “when I become a god? Will the link be destroyed?”

Grover shrugged. The squirrel clawed its way up to his top hat. 

“There’s no way of knowing. This whole thing… it’s strange. My people, the nymphs, the satyrs, we think something is up. We can’t quite place it, but it’s like the world is falling apart at the seams. Something is being born. I can’t quite figure out what it is, but I know it’s dangerous.”

“You think it has something to do with me?” Percy asked. 

Grover sighed. “Like I said, we don’t know. There’s been a lot of speculation.” He pressed his hands to his face. “Look. Hercules, right?”

Percy crinkled up his face in disgust. 

“Well, he became a god through sheer cult of personality. Most of the other gods liked him well enough, and he was such a hero, that he just sort of became a god. Because of what he was, his essence, sort of. You… well, no offense, but you’re not so popular.”

Percy laughed bitterly. “Tell me about it.”

Grover leaned closer to Percy, his eyes dilated as if he’d had seven shots of espresso. 

“What I’m saying, and mind you, this is only what I think, is that there might be a reason for this whole thing. The gods definitely didn’t want this to happen. You didn’t either, and you’re not as famous as Hercules. Something has changed. I think that something has entered people’s perception that wasn’t there before. That whole thing is happening because of a cultural shift.”

Grover downed the last of his tin can. "Now, obviously, the gods don't like that theory, because it means that their existence is reliant on mortals' perceptions. But I think there's some truth in it. The nymphs are saying that maybe there's a domain that doesn't have a proper embodiment. That seems kind of outdated, to me, but there are some people who know more than they're letting on."

Grover leaned back. “Anyway, I figured you deserved to know what the wild has to say about all this.”

“Thanks.” Percy muttered. He knew that reasons were seldom good, that sometimes no explanation was better. “How’s the whole lord of the wild thing going?”

“As well as I expected it to.” Grover sighed. “Climate change is a bitch, man. You realize this whole city’s going to be underwater soon?”

Percy nodded. He’d done a whole course on it in college.

“But hey,” he said, “G-man, we could work together, you and I. Taking care of the wild. Figuring the whole thing out.”

Grover looked down at the grass. “I appreciate it Percy. But it’s better if we don’t. There are some things you don’t know. Some things you shouldn’t mess with, you get me?”

“I get you.” Percy said. He patted Grover on the shoulder. “Thanks, man, for filling my brain with more conspiracies. You’re the goat.”

“Satyr.” Grover grinned. He got to his feet. “Sorry. I gotta dash. There’s this radioactive lake in Russia-”

Percy nodded. “Take care, dude.”

He watched as his childhood friend trotted away, his top hat bouncing. Percy clambered to his feet. Something at the pit of his stomach was stirring, as if it had been awoken from a deep slumber. It uncoiled slowly, calmly, reaching from his gut to his throat. A reason. There was a reason behind all this, a reason for the dark mass inside him. Percy looked down at his hands, wondering what it was they were destined to do.


	13. Of Rooftops and Ruminations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While searching for the reason behind his immortality, Percy Jackson overhears a conversation between Pluto's children.

Percy Jackson couldn’t ignore the thing clawing from the pit of his stomach to the back of his throat. He’d tried, had spent the summer sailing with Annabeth, Iris-messaging Penny, helping the new praetors fix the aqueducts, and going on dragon joyrides with Leo, but still, the feeling overwhelmed him. 

It had started the day he attacked the boundary at Camp Half-Blood, but it had been getting stronger ever since Grover had told him there might be a reason for his immortality. Something, behind all of this. He knew he shouldn’t take much stock in things having explanations. In his experience, explanations were just as bad as the lack of them, and yet, he couldn’t shake the need to know, to understand. Grover’s theory had baffled Annabeth. She’d spent the summer researching ever since Percy told her about the encounter, burying herself in musty scrolls instead of the usual blueprints. 

“It’s certainly interesting.” she said one summer evening. August was slowly cooling into September. Penny was supposed to come back from camp in a few days. “I mean, the idea that there’s something driving this… maybe you’re meant to embody something.” She tucked a strand of her graying blonde hair behind her ear. “That’s strange. What could you embody?”

Percy knew he should say something quippy, ask if the god of awesomeness had been introduced to the pantheon yet, but the thing inside him just made him want to throw up. He shrugged. 

“Maybe it’s something that hasn’t been invented yet.” he muttered. 

“Doubtful.” Annabeth said. 

She was looking at him the way she had when she was certain he was a key to a prophecy, the answer to the question between the lines. He’d hated it then, and he hated it now. He wasn’t an answer to anything. He was just an almost middle-aged man who wanted to spend his life swimming around and repairing aqueducts with his wife and daughter. He didn’t want all of this. Percy got to his feet. 

“I’m going for a walk,” he tried to put on an easy smile. “I want to check out something in the aqueduct we repaired today. I’ll be back soon.”

Annabeth looked at him in the eyes. “You can’t run away from this, Seaweed Brain.” she said sternly. “You’ll have to figure this out.”

There was some other message hidden in her gray eyes as well. If he didn’t figure it out now, he would eventually have to figure it out without her. Percy didn’t need that reminder. He’d always thought his days were limited, and now that he realized they weren’t, the thought that other people’s were made him sick to his stomach. 

“I know.” Percy bit his lip. “But for now I just need to cool down, okay?”

Annabeth nodded and turned on the TV. “I’ll be here watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

Percy grinned. “I’ll hurry back, then.” He grabbed his keys and headed out of the apartment and into the night. 

It was foggy outside. The Roman gods didn’t mess with the weather in New Rome. Maybe they realized fighting the fog was a losing battle. Percy started towards the aqueduct, and then turned away, towards the temples on the hill. He wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do up there, yell at the gods, maybe, but the sight of the temples seemed to make the terrible thing clawing up his throat subside, if only for a moment. 

He made his way to Neptune’s cabin and paused at the door. There were voices coming from one of the temples nearby, familiar voices. 

“It’s all wrong.” a woman’s voice said. “I ignored it, at first, but the older I get the more I feel… out of time. Out of place.”

Hazel. Percy didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but he froze by the door to Neptune’s temple. Hazel had a job on a horse farm not far away. She led a program that helped kids have access to horses. She came to visit with Arion, sometimes, but Percy had no idea what she was doing among the temples in the middle of the night. 

The fog shifted, and he realized she was sitting atop Pluto’s temple, alongside someone who from a certain angle looked somewhat like Dream of the Endless from the Sandman comics. Annabeth had insisted that Dream of the Endless was based on Neil Gaiman, back when he was young and emo, but Percy didn’t know much about Neil Gaiman other than the fact he was on the Simpsons once. Regardless, there was no mistaking Nico di Angelo, sitting cross-legged next to his sister. 

“I should have realized.” he said. “I thought, after the battle and everything, that it had been necessary, but I understand now. Everything has a price. The Underworld doesn’t forget its debts. I’m sorry.”

Hazel punched him. “Don’t you dare be sorry. You saved me. You gave me my life back. I’ll face the consequences. There are always consequences, you know. It was silly of me to think that of all things, this wouldn’t have any.”

The two of them sat in silence. Percy knew he should announce his presence, should apologize for lingering in the shadows, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. The thing inside of him was looking for a reason, and explanation, and Nico di Angelo knew something. He was sure of it. 

“You know something.” Hazel said. She was smart. She could sense it, too. “More than you’re letting on.”

“I’m an Ambassador to the Underworld.” Nico shrugged. “I can’t say everything I know. But your father told you something about this, once.”

Hazel cursed, something that would’ve definitely gotten her mouth washed with lye soap back at St. Agnes. 

“I didn’t realize… I thought it meant something else. My life isn’t a curse! I’m happy to be alive!” Silence. Hazel shook her head. “I know, I know. Curses aren’t always literal. I shouldn’t be here. I just thought that Pluto meant something else.”

“He could’ve meant it both ways.” Nico shrugged. “Prophecies tend to have lots of meanings.”

“That’s not true.” There was a clunk against the cobblestones. From the sound of it, Hazel had thrown a chunk of gold off the roof. “The way I see it, this can only mean one thing.” 

Percy took a step away from the temple. He knew he shouldn’t be listening in, knew it wasn’t his place to pry. Hazel and Nico would tell him what was going on when they were ready. 

“Will he send me back?” Hazel asked. 

Nico didn’t reply. 

“Poor Percy,” Hazel muttered. Percy stopped in his tracks, just a few feet away from Neptune’s temple. “I’m worried about him.”

Nico sighed. “Me too,” he said softly. “Hazel… I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you deserve to know that this won’t end well for either of you.”

“I know.” Hazel said. “I just hoped that I wouldn’t be around to see it end badly for him.”

Despite the fact that Percy was far away from Pluto’s temple, despite the wind blowing in his ears, he could hear Nico’s words as clearly as if he was sitting beside him. 

“I’m sorry Hazel. I really am. But the Underworld doesn’t forget. It collects its debts one way or another. And in this case, I’m sorry, but I think it’ll collect them through Percy Jackson.”


	14. Of Poison and Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson meets an old enemy.

Percy Jackson wasn’t a fan of poison. The ocean wasn’t, either, which was why he was barefoot at the beach at three AM, trying to separate toxic waste from salt water. It was dark. The clouds covered the moon. The activists and cleaners hadn’t arrived yet, and probably wouldn’t for hours. The factory from where the waste was leaking still hadn’t reported the spillage, even though it had started hours ago, from the look of it. 

The ocean’s pain had woken Percy. He’d sat up, breathing heavily, as he realized what it was he was sensing. Gallons and gallons of poison, leaking into his father’s domain. He got out of bed, left a note for Annabeth, and hurried out on one of New Rome's pegasuses. When he’d gotten to the leaking pipe, he’d blocked the hole off with some water pressure. He’d started transferring the poisonous water into a concrete basin not far from the shore, but he’d hardly made a difference. The poison was everywhere, in everything. It made his stomach turn. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice said. Percy looked around, almost dropping the blob of toxins he was carefully transferring. 

The woman emerged from the sea. At first, Percy almost thought she was a nymph, a sea creature, but then she came closer. Her gray hair twisted and turned into a matted mess atop her head. Her face was decaying, rotting. She stood still in the murky water, facing him. Blood dripped from her cheek and fell into the sea. 

Percy found his voice. “You.” he took a step back. “How are you here?”

“I’m not really here.” the goddess said. “Not completely, anyway. This is just an aspect of me, come to watch the destruction.” She turned to the factory and ran a gray hand through the water. 

Percy could feel walls closing in on him, even though he was aboveground. The smell of brimstone, of monsters, overcame him, despite the sea spray. Despair overwhelmed him, rocking over him in waves. There was no mistaking the goddess in front of him, even though she had been a lot less cheerful the last time he’d seen her. 

“Akhlys.” He said, trying not to gag.

She nodded. “I’m here to visit you.”

“Why?” Percy asked, bile climbing up his throat.

“Well, for you to thank me, of course.” Akhlys sniffed. “I helped you unlock your true potential, after all.”

Percy took a step back. Every instinct of his told him to run away, to leave the polluted water behind for the safety of New Rome, but the thing in the pit of his stomach stopped him, the same thing that had made him overhear Nico and Hazel’s conversation. An explanation. He needed an explanation. 

“My potential?” Memories returned to him, memories he had tried to forget. The poison, bending to his will. Akhlys’s face as he made her choke on her own spit, made her suffer because he wanted her to. 

“Oh yes.” Akhlys said. She sounded positively gleeful, compared to her weepy self. “When we met, there were several ways this could have ended, but things have changed, since. It has all come together, into the ultimate misery.”

She ran her fingers through the water and pressed them to the cuts on her face. “Humans. They are good at manufacturing pain, aren’t they?”

“Explain yourself.” Percy growled. He refused to be afraid. The thing at the pit of his stomach demanded answers, and he’d already beaten this goddess once. He could do it again. 

“It’s funny how poison works, isn’t it?” Akhlys mused. “Sometimes, it acts quickly, but sometimes it takes years for it to enter your every bone, eat away at your insides. Sometimes it’s so slow you don’t notice you’ve been poisoned until it’s too late.”

“What do you mean?” Percy demanded. The ocean was his domain. He could do whatever he liked here. The goddess was intruding, interfering. He could banish her, destroy her. 

“All of your decisions, all of your precious friends’ decisions, they all brought you to where you are today. Becoming a god, alone and afraid.”

“What decisions?” Percy’s hands curled into fists. The water lapped eagerly at Akhlys’s waist. 

“All of them. Yours. That dear boy’s, Hades’ child. So much misery, in that one. So much pain…”

“Nico?” The water around Akhlys began to swirl and rise. “I could hurt you.” Percy threatened. “You know I can. Tell me.”

“I suppose his name is Nico,” Akhlys didn’t look frightened. In fact, she looked bored. “He made a decision, in the Land of the Dead, thought it was the right thing, the best thing he’d ever done. But now he knows how it’ll end. Now he knows exactly what it was he did.” 

“What did Nico do? How will it end?” The water swelled to Akhlys’ chest. She didn’t even flinch. 

“I don’t know.” Akhlys said. “I can only guess. But it’ll end in misery. That, I know for sure.”

“You must know something.” Percy said desperately. “About me. About what I can do. Am I meant to embody something?”

Akhlys actually smiled at that, her yellow, rotting teeth flashing for a moment. “Of all things, that’s what you choose to worry about? Only you can decide to embody something, Perseus Jackson. Only you can let something become part of you.”

Percy could feel the anger burning inside of him. He wanted to crush the goddess, to destroy her. She’d made him feel pain, had made him wake up night after night, sweating, had come here, to his home. The water rose up to her neck. 

“So much misery,” Akhlys said as the water made its way to her mouth. “I can’t wait to see how things unfold, Perseus. So much pain is in store for you.”

The water covered the top of her head. Percy Jackson raised his arms, his two hands curled into fists. Akhyls exploded into a puddle of black sludge that spread across the waves. Percy Jackson could almost swear he heard her laugh as the water destroyed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so do you guys remember the bloodbender episode from avatar? Those are the vibes here. also, school's going to get hectic this week so i'm not sure when the next update will be. hopefully soon!


	15. Of Wrath and Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson has a spirited conversation with Frank Zhang.

Percy Jackson didn’t know there was a Canada Day until he saw Frank’s house, decked out in Canadian flags with a little sign on the lawn that said Happy Canada Day. He turned to mention it to someone, but there was no one standing beside him on the porch. Penny was at camp and Annabeth was busy designing the Hunter of Artemis’s new bunker, and so there was no one around to judge him. Percy was the only man alive to know that the Hunters of Artemis even had a bunker, and it was made abundantly clear that if he divulged what he knew to anyone, he’d no longer be living. Frank opened the door, his two boys peeking out behind him. 

“Hiya, Percy.” he grinned. 

“Why does Canada have a day? They never gained independence.” Percy blurted. “Also, hi.”

“You wouldn’t deprive us of a celebration, would you?” Frank pouted. "Us Canadians don't want to feel left out is all."

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Percy said, following Frank into the house. 

“Hi, Mr. Percy,” one of the boys said timidly. 

“Hey there, bud.” Percy leaned over and gave him a high five. “What’s up?”

“I’m building a rocketship.” he said seriously. 

“That’s incredible. I’ll check it out later.” Percy promised as Frank ruffled his child's hair. 

The two boys nodded and scurried off. Frank led Percy into the living room. A bow was mounted over the fireplace. Couches were scattered throughout. Frank offered Percy a cup of tea, and Percy accepted it thankfully, even though it was warm out, even though he didn’t even like tea all that much. Frank’s tea had a soothing effect, made him want to close his eyes and sink into his armchair. 

“You’re here to talk about something, aren’t you?” Frank asked. Percy sometimes found himself wishing his friends weren’t all so damn perceptive. It was off putting. He nodded. 

“I kind of need to admit to something.” Percy said uneasily. He’d always felt it wasn’t right he’d come clean to Hazel and Annabeth, but not the others. He’d promised himself he’d put it right, sooner rather than later. He couldn’t keep putting things off. 

“I know.” Frank said, sipping his tea. 

“I’m becoming a god.” Percy sighed. Frank looked at him calmly. 

“You should know,” he said levelly, “that secrets don’t stay secret long. Especially not secrets about you. People have been talking for a while now.”

Percy had figured. He took another sip of his tea, the burden off his chest. 

“Is there a reason you’re telling me now?” Frank asked. 

“I mean, other than wanting to?” Percy shrugged. “Things have been getting weird. Speeding up. I’m not sure how much time I have left before it’s… you know… final.”

Frank nodded. His presence was extremely reassuring, somehow, as if he could beat up all of Percy’s problems with his fists. 

“I was visited by Akhlys.” Percy continued. “You know, the poison lady?”

Frank had never met her, but he’d heard rumors. Rumors about how Percy Jackson had faced her, had attacked her, using her own power against her. Rumors of how dangerous Percy Jackson could be when faced with Annabeth’s death. 

“She said she helped me unlock my true potential, that Nico was responsible for what would happen, in the future.” 

Frank had never heard Percy Jackson sound so scared. Not when they’d unchained Thanatos, not when they fought against Gaia. It was telling, he thought to himself, that of all things, Percy Jackson was most afraid of what he might become. 

“She could have been lying.” he suggested halfheartedly. He had a feeling gods didn’t lie to Percy Jackson all that much anymore. It was a bad decision, tactically speaking, one that could come back to haunt them later. 

“She wasn’t.” Percy said firmly. “Do you know anything about what Nico did? Something he might not have told me?”

Frank almost smiled. Nico di Angelo was not the sort of guy to go around blabbing his secrets. If he wanted something to stay hidden, he wouldn’t tell a soul, especially not Frank.

“I don’t think it’s something like that.” Frank said carefully. He didn’t know anything concrete, not really, but he had a feeling it was something to do with Thanatos taking inventory as he was freed from his chains. Percy Jackson would have to figure it out on his own, though. There were some things that simply weren’t to be messed with. 

“What do you mean?” Percy asked, and then raised his hands in defeat. “Never mind. Nobody has told me anything yet, and I doubt they’ll start now. I probably have to figure it out on my own, don’t I?” 

Frank couldn’t stop a smile from flitting across his face. “I really am sorry, Percy. It’s just that, well…”

“You think I should just blunder about, hoping to understand what everyone else figured out ages ago, because that’s fate?” Percy angrily put down his teacup, the remains of the tea sloshing over the sides. It wasn’t fair of him to get angry, but nothing seemed fair. Everything was in riddles he couldn’t solve, in prophecies he couldn’t parse. “I get it. It’s the age old game of Tell Percy Absolutely Nothing, And Expect He Makes the Right Decisions, huh?”

Percy got to his feet. He knew he should keep his voice down, knew he shouldn’t yell at Frank, but he couldn’t stop himself. The anger, the frustration, came out of him in waves, the thing at the pit of his stomach writhing. 

“I’ve had enough of all of this.” he said bitterly. He hurried down the hallway. 

“Mr. Percy!” a small voice said from one of the adjourning rooms. “Mr. Percy, do you wanna see our rocket?”

Percy looked back, in spite of himself, to see one of the little boys looking at him with expecting eyes. He bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything, but the look in his eyes sent the boy stumbling back, terrified. His mouth became a perfect round o of fear. Percy couldn’t take it anymore. He stormed out, slamming the door behind him. A Canadian flag unstuck from the door and collapsed from the porch as he ran, trying to get away from it all.


	16. Of Regret and Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny comes home from Camp Half-Blood.

Percy Jackson watched his daughter descend towards New Rome on a white pegasus. He waved towards the sky as Penny landed neatly. The pegasus looked at Percy distrustfully. Penny patted his head and muttered something soothing. She couldn’t talk to horses, not really, but she understood them better than most people. She scrambled off the pegasus and engulfed her father in a hug. 

“It is so good to see you,” she grinned. “You wouldn’t believe the things flying around this time of year. I met three different types of sentient tornadoes. Three!”

“Are you okay?” Percy asked. Penny had insisted she could make her own way home from Camp Half Blood that summer, and her parents had reluctantly agreed. 

“Sure.” Penny grinned. “They let me go, after some yelling. The last one was a close one, though. It really messed up my hair.” She let her black hair out of its ponytail, looking around quizzically. Her eyes lit up when she spotted Annabeth making her way towards them. 

“Mom!” she yelled, running towards her. Annabeth beamed. 

“Hi, darling.” she said, planting a kiss at the top of her head. “Have a good summer?”

“The best.” Penny pulled her leather necklace from under her shirt. It had five beads strung along, from each of her summers at camp. The newest one was decorated with a sword, an eye, and a pile of gold.

“Is that your sword?” Annabeth asked, looking closer. “Oh, don’t tell me that was the thing Chiron mentioned…” She trailed off, shaking her head disapprovingly. 

“Mom, I was totally ready,” Penny said, leading the pegasus towards the stables. “You should have seen the way I tricked them. And besides, I’m practically grown up. I couldn’t avoid a quest forever.”

“You went on a quest?” Percy could feel his stomach tying up in knots. 

“It wasn’t a big quest.” Penny said. “Not like something you and mom did. We didn’t even leave New York. This cyclops had a bunch of half-bloods hostage. We had to rescue them.”

Annabeth smiled, as if satisfied. “Well, I’m glad you started small. I expect it didn’t take a lot of time.”

“Oh, it took weeks.” Penny rolled her eyes. “That’s why I couldn’t Iris-message. I was pretending to be a hostage.”

“You were hostage for weeks?” Percy felt his stomach turn. He knew that at sixteen he had been going through a lot worse, that at sixteen he had been the one to decide the fate of the world, but he’d hoped, stupidly, perhaps, that Penny would have a quiet time at camp, hanging out with the naiads, or learning the Iliad by heart. It had been a foolish hope, he realized, as he watched Penny, head raised high, walk into the stables. 

“Oh, yeah.” she said, smiling at the boy at the stables.  
“Were you okay?” 

The boy helped the pegasus into a stall and filled his trowel with fresh hay. Penny fished a half-eaten donut out of her pocket and gave it to him. He devoured it greedily, and Penny scratched him behind his ears. 

“You’ll be able to go back soon.” she told him, and turned to Percy. “Yeah, the food was great. They wanted to eat us, after all. Let’s go home.”

At the apartment, Penny threw down her backpack and started to pull out clothes. 

“What a mess.” she said, poking a finger through a quarter-sized hole in her jeans. “I’ll have to wash them really well to get the monster smell out.”

“How long were you on the quest?” Percy helped her gather her stinky clothes and load them into the washing machine. 

“A month, give or take.” Penny shrugged. “It took us a long time to smuggle out all four of the half-bloods and replace them with us without the cyclops getting suspicious. Besides, we had to locate the treasure.”

“What treasure?” Annabeth asked. “Don’t tell me you guys got distracted by a bunch of shiny objects.”

Penny crossed her arms. “No, mom. You sound exactly like Chiron. Don’t you guys understand we need weapons? Who knows when the next attack could be? We’re sorely under-equipped.” Her voice was laden with responsibility, her shoulders turned inwards, as if the weight of the world was on them. 

Percy and Annabeth exchanged looks. The two of them were used to planning the next apocalypse, knowing there would always be something else. Percy had hoped that it would be different for their daughter. But she was a half-blood, even if she didn’t know it, and a half-blood’s life was always dangerous. 

“What makes you think something will happen?” Annabeth asked shrewdly. Percy could tell her mind was moving a mile a minute, assessing threats, making plans. 

“Things are getting restless.” Penny shrugged. Percy thought he could hear her voice crack. “Camp has almost been flooded twice, which has never happened before. The monsters have been gossiping. There are strange rumors about a half-blood. Chiron looks worried all the time.” 

Even though Penny was acting nonchalant, Percy could tell she was worried. His stomach twisted again. He loved Camp Half-Blood, but he hadn’t wanted this for his daughter, the same fear, the same danger. He wished she could have just gone to wilderness camp, instead of training to stick out her neck. Instead of being a hero. She was just a child, and camp would turn her into a weapon. Just as it had turned him into one. 

Percy Jackson loved Camp Half-Blood, but for a moment, as he watched his daughter’s face crumple with worry, all he could think of was how much he wanted to destroy it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy halloween! also if anyone wants to be friends with me on NaNoWriMo, that would be cool. I'm plottingalong there too!


	17. Of Reunifications and Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson visits Piper McLean.

Percy Jackson's friends were getting old. Slowly, at first, their shoulders turning in, their eyesight failing, and then all at once, their bones breaking, their hips dislocating.

Piper insisted she didn't mind.

"I'm lucky," she said as she served Percy lemonade. "All of my body parts still work. Besides, I'm fifty three. That's hardly ancient." 

Percy didn't know what to say to that. He had long since stopped looking like a teenager. He supposed he looked to be in his thirties, although lately he'd started glimpsing glints of silver hair in the mirror, though if that was reality, or wishful thinking, or both, he wasn't sure. Piper and her wife, Dawn, lived in a house in Oklahoma. Piper visited Camp Half-Blood, sometimes, but she rarely came by to New Rome.

"I just don't feel welcome there, you know?" She explained, sipping her lemonade. Her eyes were as bright as ever. She was wearing a chunky knitted sweater, her hair in a braid to one side. "That was, well, Jason's."

Percy nodded. He had decided to come down and visit Piper alone, got on a pegasus and headed East. He didn't know exactly why he had felt it was so important to go visit her, but he had stopped ignoring his instincts. He found that bad things had a tendency to happen when he did. 

"I'm glad you're here," Piper said. "It's been a long time since I checked in with everyone." 

It had been a long time since Percy had checked in with everyone too. Frank's children were grown, but Percy hadn't been to visit in a while. Leo came by every once in a while. He hadn't given up on the travelling life, and the heroics that came with it. Hazel was the only one Percy saw regularly. She made sure to come by to New Rome every once in a while on Arion. 

"I saw Thalia recently." Piper continued, "with the hunters. They came by. Gods, she looks so young." 

Percy nodded. The last he'd seen of Thalia was after Annabeth had designed a bunker for the hunters, and even then he'd been stricken by how much closer in age she looked to Penny than to them. 

Piper took another sip of her lemonade. 

"She mentioned something about finding a cave in the woods, back in California. She said it might have been where Jason grew up."

Percy knew exactly what she was talking about. He'd found Jason's old home in the woods years ago, and Lupa had convinced him not to tell Thalia anything about it. If he was to retreat from the world of man, he had to defeat his fatal flaw, or he could end up making a terrible mistake. That had been what she’d told him, anyway. 

"Anyway," Piper said, studying his face. "She said she was almost certain you knew something about it, back then, and didn't tell her."

Percy steeled himself to be scolded, or perhaps even yelled at. If Thalia had been here, he was certain he would've gotten slapped. Instead, Piper smiled at him a little sadly. 

"Percy, is everything okay?" 

"Of course you know." Percy mumbled.

"Well, by now everyone does." Piper said. "But Percy, I'm not part of all that anymore. You can tell me whatever you want."

Percy sighed. Piper was right. She wasn't part of the half-blood life anymore. She'd given it up after she grew up. But it was different for her. She'd only come to camp at fifteen, and she was a child of Aphrodite. But she still thought of him as a young man, the young man who had saved the world time and time again. She thought of him as a hero, and he wasn't that anymore.

"I had a reason for not telling Thalia about the cave. It was a test, of sorts. I'm doing my best, Piper. Trying to learn. But there's no one who can teach me, and everything I know is in riddles and cryptic messages."

Piper’s eyes were full of sadness, and her expression was the same as the expressions his other friends had when he spoke to them, these days. Equal parts pity and fear. 

"I trust you, Percy. You'll make the right decisions."

"What if I don't?” Percy demanded. "I don't want to be trusted. I want to know what everyone else does. I want to be told what to do, and not by a creepy poison goddess. I need to take everything into consideration now. I can't just do what I want. I have responsibilities."

"Percy," Piper said. "There's nothing I know that you don't. Whoever you're mad at, it's not me. You'll do the right thing. Here," she got up, rifled through the kitchen desk, and pulled out Katropatris. 

"You still have that?" Percy asked.

"I've got to protect myself somehow." Piper shrugged. "Look if you can see something."

“I thought it stopped working.” Percy said, carefully taking it. The hilt was cold, as if it had been chilled in ice. 

“I haven’t seen anything in it for years.” Piper replied. “But then again, maybe it didn’t have anything to show me.”

Percy found himself wishing he could be as calm as Piper, as detached. She’d moved on with her life, gotten married, found herself a job running a Cherokee youth art center and advocating for human rights. She had paid her debt to the world, and the only thing left of her old life was a prophetic dagger she kept in the kitchen drawer, and even that hadn’t shown her a vision in a while. Percy envied her. He tilted the blade to catch the light. 

A vision glinted in the dagger. A dark cliff over the sea. A storm raging. A man, standing, his hands raised as lightning flashed around him. A woman, approaching him from behind, calling his name. Katropatis’s hilt grew warmer, as the man turned to face her. His expression was wild, unreadable, and most of all, angry. 

Percy dropped the blade. 

“You saw something.” Piper said. 

“Lucky me.” Percy mumbled. He felt the sudden need to go home, to make sure everything was okay. He couldn’t make himself meet Piper’s eyes as he left.

On the way home, he kept his eyes open for as long as he dared. Every time he closed them, he saw the vision in the knife, saw the expression on his face again and again.


	18. Of Visits and Vexations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Annabeth go visit Penny in New York.

Percy Jackson missed his daughter. She went to university in New York, and lived with Sally and Paul. She’d promised to come by on weekends, but she hadn’t, not in a while. It was Annabeth who had convinced him the two of them should go check up on her, and so they did, the mortal way. Annabeth was getting a bit too old to jump on pegasuses whenever she felt like it. In the car, Percy had become more and more consumed with worry. 

“She’s probably fine,” Annabeth said to him as they drove for the thousandth time. “Just busy.”

After all these years together, she knew him better than anyone in the world. After all these years, she was the only one that still looked at him the same, her gray eyes sparkling. 

"You're probably right." Percy replied, but he couldn't stop worrying. 

When they arrived at Sally's house, Paul opened the door. 

“Percy, Annabeth. It’s so good to see you.”

“Where’s Penny?” Percy asked. 

“She’s out and about.” Paul said, welcoming them in. “Sally’s in the kitchen.”

Sally Jackson had aged gracefully. She was pottering about the kitchen with a look of satisfaction, fussing over Annabeth, who was helping her prepare a plate of cookies. 

“Penny’s been having a wonderful time. Her doctorate is going along wonderfully. Thank goodness she inherited your brains, Annabeth.”

Percy chuckled uneasily, looking around. He knew, logically, that Penny was an adult, that she was probably out with friends, or running an errand. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. 

“I’m going out for a bit.” he said, planting a kiss on his mother’s cheek. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

Sally Jackson beamed. “I have some blue jelly beans in the pantry when you get back,” she said. “Don’t be getting into trouble.”

“Me? Get in trouble?” Percy smirked. He hurried out the door before Annabeth could say anything. 

He drove. At first, he didn’t know exactly where he was going, but it quickly became apparent. He was heading towards Long Island. Towards camp. Penny had mentioned she visited, sometimes, did odd jobs for Chiron. He assumed the odd jobs were a lot more dangerous than what she made out, but he couldn’t convince her not to do them. 

He drove until he could see movement, to the left of the road. Two figures fighting in a pumpkin field. 

Percy could see a blade, Penny’s blade, flashing in the sun as he approached. The two of them weren’t far from camp, but too far for comfort. Percy parked his car at the side of the road and hurried out. 

Penny was agile, quick, as she fought a tall man dressed in white. She had been taught well, and was prepared. But the other man was strong, swinging his sword like a scythe. Percy took a deep breath, his stomach turning over. He didn’t think about it, but he could feel the pinch in his gut, and saw the man’s eyes widening as he grunted in pain and fell to the ground. Penny pinned him to the ground, sword to his chest. The man convulsed, his arms and legs twitching. Penny looked around, before spotting Percy, who hurried to her side. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. The man dressed in white was lying with his eyes wide open. The blood in his veins had turned black, and there was sludge oozing from both of his ears. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Penny demanded, putting away her sword. “I was going to disarm him.”

“He could’ve hurt you.”

“So you killed him?” Penny prodded the man’s arm with her foot. “I can’t believe it, Dad. You just killed him. We could’ve been practicing, for all you knew.”

“But you weren’t practicing.”

“We could have been!” Penny replied angrily. “I had it under control. We were going to bring him back to camp, have a talk with him. I mean, he wasn’t exactly great, but he didn’t deserve to die.”

She picked the man up and slung him over her shoulder with ease. “Guess I’ll bring him back, like I promised, to bury him.” Her eyes shot daggers at Percy. She didn’t seem happy to see him, not in the least. “Dad, you can’t do this. You’re not always right. You can’t take fate into your hands like that.”

“I’m not always right. But I was right about you being in danger. I can’t let you get hurt.” Percy could feel tears welling in his eyes. He couldn’t lose Penny. She thought she was invincible, but everyone thought that, when they were young, and poisoned with heroism. Now that he had seen her fighting, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of anxiety. 

Penny headed away from him, towards Camp Half-Blood. Percy followed her. 

“I’m not hurt.” Penny said. “Unlike the guy I’m currently carrying. I’m perfectly capable, and I know my limits, but I’m not sure you know yours.”

Percy looked away. He wasn’t sure he knew his own limits either.

“You don’t have to do all these things.” he finally said. “You can walk away from it all.”

“Dad, you’re a hero.” Penny said. “You saved the world like ten different times. You don’t get to lecture me on this.”

“Yes, I do.” Percy said. “Because I didn’t walk away fast enough.”

Because I was too slow to realize the danger of my own power, he thought to himself. Because I stuck around so long I began to change into something there is no coming back from. He didn’t say it out loud, but it hung in the air between them. 

“I’m in no danger of that.” Penny said. “I’m not like you. I just do what I can, when I can.”

“They can manage without you.” Percy said. They had reached the very top of the hill. Camp Half-Blood spread out below them. Percy almost wanted to curse it, curse the perfect strawberry fields and the Big House. It had taught her this. It was the one that wouldn’t let her go, wouldn't let her live. 

“They can, but they won’t.” Penny replied. “Because I’ll be there for them.”

She shifted the weight of the dead man on her shoulder and turned to him. Her eyes were exactly like Annabeth’s eyes. 

“You have to find your boundaries.” she said. “If not, if you keep this up, it will end terribly, Dad. It will. Trust me.”

She turned away, back into camp, her head bowed down, the gravity of death tugging at her shoulders. Percy wondered why he felt nothing when he looked at the dead man on her back. He wondered what his daughter felt when he looked at him. He wondered if there was a way to come back from what he had become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am running out of "Of Something and Something" titles. I did it as a half joke/half Steinbeck reference but I regret it now.


	19. Of Departure and Disease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson visits his mother for the last time.

Percy Jackson hadn’t been sure Zeus would let him enter his domain. It had been years since he’d flown to New York, but this time, he didn’t want to take the time to drive. Annabeth had encouraged him to go, and Hazel had promised she would keep an eye on her. Not that Annabeth needed anyone to keep an eye on her, but she had been growing sicker, lately, weaker. Percy wasn’t sure what it was, and neither did the doctors or healers, but it acted fast, eating away at her health. 

“I’ll be okay,” she’d told him before he went, gathering her silver hair into a ponytail. “Besides, no half-blood is meant to plunge into Tartarus, drink from the waters of the Phlegethon, or fight Mother Earth herself. Those things take their toll.” Annabeth was certain her condition was from a life of living dangerously, of experiencing things no person should. Percy hated the fact that she was probably right.

He wanted to argue that it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t fair, but the look on Annabeth’s face silenced him. 

“I’ll go.” he’d said, kissing her on her forehead. “I’ll tell my mom you said hi.”

“You’d better.” Annabeth had replied, before returning to her book. 

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like the sky god was interested in fighting, and before long, Percy had passed over Michigan. The three of them, or, more and more frequently, just he and Annabeth, drove over every year for the holidays. Penny often claimed she was too busy. It wasn’t as though she didn’t visit her grandparents. She did, often, seeing as she lived in New York. Percy had a feeling she was avoiding him, specifically. Annabeth tried to assure him that it wasn’t so, but Percy couldn’t help but remember the look she had given him when he had killed the man in the pumpkin field. She had never spoken to him the same way again. 

Percy worried about her, sometimes. Penny still went on missions for camp, even though she was already grown up, nearly thirty years old. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a life, outside of camp. She did, full of friends, a boyfriend, and a job, which was some sort of research that only smart people understood, but her loyalty to camp never wavered. Sometimes, Percy sat in front of a mist machine, drachma in hand, for hours, thinking about calling her. He never did. 

When he reached his mother’s house, she was standing at the window, waiting for him. 

“I made you blue cookies,” she said, embracing him in a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

Paul waved cheerily from the armchair, and the three of them sat in the living room, talking. Sally left out a stack of sandwiches for him, which Percy ignored. He did not have much of an appetite, hadn’t for years. They did not speak of Annabeth, and the strange poison going through her body. They spoke of Penny, and her new boyfriend. They spoke of the new exhibit Sally’s only statue was soon going to join, a great honor, and how she was invited to the grand opening. 

“By the way,” Paul smiled, turning to Percy, “your mother’s third book just went into its second printing.”

Sally Jackson beamed proudly, at that, and Percy felt his chest grow a little warmer. Not everything turned out well in life. Not everyone good got what they deserved. But at least Sally Jackson did. Percy let the conversation meander, before clearing his throat. 

He hated to be the one who ruined the evening, but he had come all this way for a reason. There was something he needed to tell her. Something she needed to know. 

“Paul,” Percy said carefully. “I need to talk to mom for a moment, if that’s okay.”

Paul winked at him and slowly shuffled off to the oven, where the smell of cookies still sat heavy in the air. They were slightly burnt, because Sally had forgotten them in the oven for a bit too long.

“Mom.” Percy said hesitantly. She smiled at him, her sparkling eyes clear as ever. 

“Yes, sweetie?” she asked. 

Something stuck in Percy’s throat, but he took a deep breath and doggedly continued. “It doesn’t look good. For Annabeth, I mean. I plan to stay with her, and then after that…” he trailed off. He hadn’t exactly explained his situation to his mother, didn’t want to saddle her with his grief. 

“I’ll be leaving after that,” he said. “Just like Poseidon had to.” The thought of not seeing her again tore at his chest. But he knew he would have to do it, or else he would break apart. 

Sally Jackson nodded. She used to be able to see through the Mist, and even in her old age, there were things she still saw as clear as day. She had noticed that her son hadn’t aged, had noticed the way his own daughter looked at him, as if scared. Sally Jackson knew what had happened. She only hoped that she had raised her son right, that he would be able to carry the burden he had been given. 

“I love you, son.” she said. “I’m sorry it has to be so soon.”

“Me too.” Percy said. He enveloped his mother in his arms, feeling as the tears slid down his face. “Me too, Mom.”

The next day, Percy Jackson left his mother’s house behind as she stood and watched. The smell of burnt cookies hung in the air and a stack of stale, untouched sandwiches sat at the table as Sally Jackson’s eyes followed his retreating figure, filled with the pain of a mother who knew her son would never return home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my sister told me to tell you guys that she very loudly yelled "NO, DON'T DO THAT" when I read her the last paragraph, and then informed me that I suck.


	20. Of Flaws and Finality

Percy Jackson had watched far too many of his friends die. He had lost Bianca, despite his promises, had lost Silena and Beckendorf, had lost Jason. He had assumed, foolishly, that all that would be behind him when he reached adulthood. He had assumed he and Annabeth would live together in a house in New Rome until the two of them were ancient.

Percy Jackson knew now that he would live until he was ancient. But not in New Rome. Not with Annabeth. When he was younger, but not by much, he used to sit with Piper, counting the stars. The grief between the two of them was familiar by that point, tired. Jason Grace had become a ghost on Piper’s shoulder, a potential that had never bloomed. She had told Percy that she used to imagine her and Jason sitting together on the porch, drinking lemonade, telling stories to their grandchildren. Percy had made the mistake of taking the story and making it his own in his imagination, him and Annabeth in old age, the grandkids huddled around the two of them, the stories flowing with the lemonade. 

There was a porch, and there was lemonade, and the lack of grandchildren wasn’t all that terrible, but Annabeth was far from old age. She was in her sixties, and years of being a hero had eroded her body. Looking at her, Percy couldn’t help but think of every ghost he had ever encountered, every spirit trapped someplace terrible, begging to be released. She walked, Percy thought, as if she was the guardian of her own body, as if she had been assigned to protect it long ago and had now grown weary of it, yearning for a hero to relieve her of her duty. Percy kept thinking of what Akhlys had told him. 

It’s funny how poison works, isn’t it? Sometimes, it acts quickly, but sometimes it takes years for it to enter your every bone, eat away at your insides. Sometimes it’s so slow you don’t notice you’ve been poisoned until it’s too late.

It was too late, now. Percy couldn’t stop thinking about the unfairness of it all. Annabeth deserved to live far longer, to enjoy a long and peaceful retirement. Annabeth looked at it differently, mentioned people who cleaned up Chernobyl, mentioned the Radium Girls licking the brushes that glowed green. There is nothing permanent about radium poisoning, she liked to joke. It will all end, sooner or later. The Greeks had never been big about retirement. They had striven for Elysium. Percy had not brought up the subject of Elysium and the Isles of Bless. He could not tolerate the thought that he would one day show up in the underworld, somehow, having convinced Hades to let him in, only to find her gone, her soul washed clean. It had happened to Nico di Angelo, and it had nearly broken him. Percy tried not to think of it, but found it crowding his mind as the two of them sat on the shoreline, Annabeth’s breathing slow as they admired the water. The beach was empty. It was quiet.

“Come on, Wise Girl.” Percy said, getting to his feet. “Let’s go into the water.”

He held out a hand, and Annabeth took it. They waded into the ocean until the water was nearly up to their necks. Annabeth closed her eyes and floated on her back. Percy grabbed her and pulled the two of them underwater. 

The bubble closed around them. The two of them held each other, deep below the waves. For a moment, there was nothing in the world but the two of them kissing, as they had done in another ocean, thousands of miles away, dozens of years ago. Percy let the water wash them both to shore. Annabeth pretended to glare at him, pushing her gray hair out of her eyes. The two of them burst into laughter, mirthful, overwhelming, which elapsed into silence.

“I know what you’re thinking, Percy,” Annabeth said softly. 

“Oh, do you?” 

“You’re asking yourself if I’ll taste the Lethe. If I’ll wash myself clean.”

Percy fell silent. Annabeth looked down at her hands, shaking and wrinkled. She looked up at him, her grey eyes as sharp as ever. 

“You know I will.” she said, softly. “You always knew I would.”

Percy felt his heart drop into his stomach. 

“Annabeth-”

“You will stay here forever, but I do not mean to. When I die, I will see everyone we lost one final time, and then I’ll drink of the waters of the Lethe. I’ve got some more good I’d like to do. I’d like to start again.”

Her gaze was steady. She was familiar with her fatal flaw, knew that she would always be certain she could do better, build better, help better, even if she couldn’t. She knew it might lead to her downfall. But she was willing to risk Elysium to do it all again. 

Percy wanted to tell her that starting again meant losing all they had now. He wanted to say that he would find a way into the underworld, even if he had to drown Hades in the Styx, but he knew it was a losing battle. Annabeth Chase would drink from the Lethe and begin anew. It was what she deserved, after all. Percy took her hand. Annabeth looked straight into his eyes. 

“Percy,” she said. “You’ll have to let me go.”

Percy squeezed her hand, trying to control the feeling in the pit of his stomach, the feeling that felt like falling. Lupa had warned him, as had countless others. Annabeth Chase was a hero. Her choice would be her own. He had no such privilege. He had to overcome his own fatal flaw, or risk destruction, but as he looked into his wife’s eyes, he realized he couldn’t. Percy Jackson couldn’t bring himself to say the word he was thinking, couldn’t let Annabeth know that he would succumb, that he would fail her, but he already knew he could give no other answer. 

Never.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have nothing to say in my defense.


	21. Of Divinity and Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson confronts Hazel on a clifftop.

Percy Jackson stood over the water. The ocean raged below him, the waves swelling before crashing into the shore. He did not know if it was his doing or not. He was no longer sure where he ended and the world began. 

They had burned Annabeth Chase the day before. As the pyre blazed, Percy felt himself looking through the crowd that had come to pay her respects. It took him a moment to realize he was looking for her, trying to convince himself she wasn’t gone. That hope had dissipated along with the last of the smoke. He could feel it so strongly he could think of nothing else. Annabeth Chase was gone. 

Percy Jackson had told himself he would be able to cope. Annabeth Chase had told herself that she was ready to leave. He realized now that the two of them had been lying. Annabeth Chase had not been ready. He had seen it in her eyes. She had not been ready, and he could not continue without her, could not leave her to the Underworld. She deserved better. He would bring her back. 

Below him, the ocean churned. Percy could feel it calling him. He knew it was time to leave. It was what he had promised Athena. It would be unwise to go back on his promise. It would be unwise to let his emotions get the better of him. It would be unwise to let the water batter the rocks, to let it rise until it swallowed the clifftop whole. But Percy had never been the wise one. 

“You’ll be going now, I expect.” a voice said from behind him. 

Percy turned. Standing there was Hazel Levesque, her arms crossed. Her hair had turned gray over the years. It shone softly in the moonlight. She smiled tiredly. 

“It’s time now.” she said. 

“Not yet.” Percy replied. He could feel poison coating the back of his tongue, his heart hammering with urgency. He couldn’t leave now. Not without Annabeth. “Not yet, Hazel. I have to bring her back.”

“You can’t bring her back.” Hazel said. “I’m sorry, Percy.”

Percy laughed. The sound skipped across the bay, hollow, harsh. 

“Nico brought you back.” he said. “He brought you back, even though you were dead. It isn’t fair.”

“No,” Hazel replied. “It isn’t.”

Nico had warned her what would happen on a stormy night atop a cliff. Even if he hadn’t, it was all clear now. The look in Percy Jackson’s eyes was wild, desperate. It was the look of a god who had lost his realm, or perhaps one that was yet to gain it. 

“It isn’t fair!” Percy yelled. “I’m going to bring her back, Hazel. I have to.”

“You can’t.” Hazel said. “You can’t enter Pluto’s realm. There is nothing you can do now, Percy. You have to leave.” 

When she was twelve years old, her father had looked into her eyes and delivered her her fate. 

A descendant of Neptune will wash away your curse and give you peace.

She had thought he’d meant Frank. But every prophecy had another side. Nico di Angelo had brought her up from the Underworld when Thanatos had been chained. He had known how difficult it was, to be a person outside his time, a person who did not recognize the new world he had been thrust into, but did it anyway. To give her a chance. To bring back a sister, even if not the right one. Being out of time felt cursed, sometimes, he told her once, and she’d replied that it didn’t feel cursed to her. To her it felt magical. But curses could be sneaky, and the Underworld always claimed its debts. 

“Help me.” Percy pleaded. “I can’t enter the Underworld, but you, you can. Help me bring her back.” He was crying now, the tears rolling down his face. The waves crashed into the cliffside, spraying the two of them with water. 

“You know I can’t.” Hazel said. Once, the two of them had gone on adventures together, had fought monsters together, had flown together in a ship that sailed across the sky. Hazel had never imagined it would end like this, but then again, she knew the myths. Greek heroes almost never found happiness. For every hundred that plummeted into the sea, there was one who touched the sun and succumbed to divinity. “You have to leave now, Percy Jackson. You are not a man, not anymore.”

Percy Jackson raised his arms in the air. He understood now. It had never been about him, not really. It had been about a prophecy, delivered by the god of the Underworld. It had been about how Nico di Angelo had let go of one sister, only to bring another to life. It had been about how he had clutched Annabeth’s hand, and refused to let her fall. 

“I am not.” he agreed. He was not a man, and would never be. That part of his life was over. Now all that was left of it were the consequences, the mistakes, the flaws. 

“I am not a man.” he said. He could feel the pressure mounting in his stomach, could feel his anger, his fear washing over him. Behind him, the ocean unfolded like an angry beast. “You would do well to fear me. Speak to your father. Bring Annabeth back.”

Hazel Levesque had faced a goddess like that, once. One that would do anything to bring back her son. To avenge her kin. That was how it had all began, and now, it was how it would end. 

“No.” she said.

When the water came, it filled her lungs, just like the oil had. She did not scream. She was not afraid. Dying felt familiar, now. She closed her eyes as the water engulfed her. 

When the mist dissipated, Percy Jackson stood alone on the clifftop. He did not call for Hazel. There was no point. 

If he had looked up, he would have seen a vulture, circling overhead. He didn’t. He looked down, into the ocean, into his birthright, into his future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again. I apologize.


	22. Of Legacy and Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson leaves his old world behind.

Percy Jackson watched Piper McLean from beyond the trees. He knew better than to approach her, so instead, he stood just out of sight, watching as she slowly sipped from a cup of tea. The funeral had been a week ago. Percy hadn’t attended. He couldn’t bring himself too, couldn’t make himself face the consequences of what he had done. 

Piper let out a deep breath into the still air. She had never expected much of the gods. Her father had feared them, and he had been right to. Divinity was a terrible thing, as were the things that came along with it, the monsters, the giants, the sacrifices. She used to miss the world she had left, the one where empires still existed, the one where she was a daughter of a goddess. She was grateful, now, that she had left it behind. Percy Jackson couldn’t, and it had taken everything from him, and as for Hazel… Piper didn’t want to think about what happened to Hazel. She had a feeling that if she did, her conclusions would haunt her. She sipped her tea and looked around the woods. She could feel his presence, Percy was sure of it, the way that he had once felt the unease of a monster’s eyes following him. 

Piper was the first. Percy wasn’t ready to return to New Rome, and didn’t know where Leo was, and so he had gone to Oklahoma. He'd known he couldn’t say goodbye, but he'd needed to see how their great adventure ended, how the seven of them had finally disbanded, what was left of the Argo II. 

***

Leo Valdez ran off after the funerals. He couldn’t bring himself to stay, not when they were just three of seven, not when two of them had already passed on to the underworld. The Romans, and the visiting Greeks, didn’t know what had happened. Most assumed that Percy had left after Annabeth’s funeral, and that Hazel had fallen into the sea looking for him. Leo knew as well as the other two that that wasn’t what had happened. He could feel it in his bones. A debt had been fulfilled, that night, and a life taken. Leo couldn’t stop thinking of prophecies, couldn’t stop thinking of what they meant. 

To storm or fire, the world must fall. 

He had been fire, and Jason storm. Or at least, that’s what he had assumed. But Percy Jackson was a storm, a storm that had ripped through countless lives. A storm so beautiful that some people, otherwise smart people, were willing to chase it. Percy Jackson was dangerous, but Leo couldn’t bring himself to blame him for what he’d done. He knew what it was like, killing someone he loved with power he couldn’t control. His mother’s garage burned in his mind time and time again. 

Percy Jackson appeared in the shadows as he was making camp one night. Leo almost welcomed him to sit by the fire, but he hesitated. Percy Jackson belonged with the gods now, in their great and terrible hall, in front of Hestia’s fire, the fire that had started it all. He did not belong in the light of Leo’s pitiful fire, the one slowly cooking tacos.

Percy Jackson approached the fire. He wished he could sit down next to Leo. He wished the two of them could get on Leo’s dragon and fly away, find the island they had both washed up on, once, when they were worthy of it, and exist beyond the eyes of the gods. He knew he couldn’t. He knew his time as a hero had passed. Instead, he nodded in Leo’s direction and turned back into the shadows. 

***  
When Percy Jackson returned to New Rome, not much had changed. The praetors did not think him dangerous, despite what Hazel had promised him, and no one glanced at him twice. He did not know if it was because they expected him to return, or if it was because they couldn’t see him. After all, demigods often missed signs of the divine. The only ones who noticed him were the house gods and the fauns. They watched him suspiciously. They knew he was no longer a former praetor. He was something else, something dangerous. 

On the streets of New Rome, Frank Zhang was making friends with the house gods. They flitted around like ghosts, grizzled and miserable, complaining about slights from centuries past. Frank remembered that once he had found them pathetic. Now he sat with them as they watched the children, rosy-cheeked, with sparkling eyes, scramble through the streets, armed to their teeth. 

The house gods knew exactly what had happened to Percy Jackson. They didn’t tell him, to spare him, Frank assumed, but he had a feeling he already knew. Percy Jackson had become a god and burned up his old life along the way. Percy Jackson had made sacrifices, and would now be sacrificed to. Already, a small temple was being built, at the foot of Neptune’s. Percy Jackson would be remembered. 

Frank wondered what that must feel like. Already he could see the recognition fading from the eyes of the cohorts. He had been praetor once, and a hero besides, but that meant nothing to the new heroes. They were too busy training, too busy fighting, to give much thought to what was long enough ago to be a memory, but not long enough to be a legend. Frank wished, in some dark corner of his heart, that he would one day be a legend too. He knew he wouldn’t. He knew he should be grateful for it. People became legends only when they had nothing else left. People became legends only after their humanity burned away. 

When he sensed Percy Jackson standing in the street beside him, he did not raise his head. He pretended he didn’t see him. He let himself be examined, let Percy’s eyes take him in. When Percy turned to go, he almost raised a hand in farewell, but he stopped himself. He wondered if he would ever see him again. He wondered if he wanted to. 

Percy Jackson waded through the Little Tiber one final time. He let the water seep into his clothes, his skin. He did not look back at New Rome. He knew better than that. Instead, he looked into the water. Once, it had washed away a curse of his. He knew better than to hope it would do so for a second time. He clambered out of the other bank and continued. The roads had led him to Rome, but now it was time to leave it behind for other destinations. It was time to join the gods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long :( I spent the whole week studying for a math test


	23. Of Fire and Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson meets with the only deity he trusts.

Percy Jackson approached the fire of the gods. He did not know how he had ended up in front of it. Ever since he’d left New Rome, he found himself appearing in places without meaning to. One moment he would be sitting on a park bench and the next he would be walking down a city street and the next he would be in an empty train driving to nowhere. It was as if he had been placed in a large ocean, one he could not control. He was drifting, the tides pulling him in. The world was tugging at him from every corner, every bit of it demanding his attention, demanding he join it, be part of it. Percy Jackson wondered if that was what it meant to be a god, to belong to the world in every sense of the word. 

He found himself thinking of Dionysus, injured by Typhon, and how the two of them had had a conversation in a bar in front of a Pac Man machine. Dionysus had drifted towards the sources of his power, the places that honored him. Percy didn’t know what most of the places had to do with him, the small fishing boat, the empty field. At first he thought it was coincidental, until he found himself facing a person he couldn’t look in the eyes, kneeling over a lit candle in the middle of the woods. Percy Jackson pushed the thought out of his mind. He couldn’t bear remembering it, not yet.

The fire of the gods, or at least part it, was flickering forlornly in a small pit. Pine trees grew around it. Percy thought, from the chill in the air, that he was somewhere up north. Vermont, maybe. A girl was watching the fire, a girl who was also a goddess. She smiled when she saw Percy standing between the trees. 

“I’ve been wondering when you’d show up.” Hestia said. 

She was wearing a black coat and a long yellow scarf that trailed around her neck and down onto the ground. Her brown hair was pulled back in a braid. Percy wondered if he should run away. It would be all too easy to let the world snatch him up again and deposit him somewhere else, but then he saw the fire burning in Hestia’s eyes and decided to against it. He sat down. Percy could feel the pull of other places, demanding his attention, but for a brief moment he felt anchored to the fire and its guardian. 

“It’s been a long time since we last spoke.” Hestia said. The fire in front of her burned bright. It filled him with warmth. He remembered the last time he had spoken to Hestia all too well. It had been the beginning of it all. She had been the only deity he trusted. She was still the only one he trusted. 

“I insisted on being the one to greet you.” Hestia said. “Because you called on me, all those years ago. I am sorry that this is how it went.”

“It didn’t go the way you expected, did it?” Percy asked.

“No.” Hestia admitted. “I did not think it would be so… destructive.” 

Percy laughed. He had always been destructive. He’d always gone down the road of death, the road of ruin. It had been foolish of her to assume this would go otherwise. Naive. Percy thrust his hands towards the fire. The flames licked at his fingers, as if they had been waiting for him. It didn’t hurt. Hestia watched him sadly. 

“Will it always feel like this?” Percy asked. “I didn’t know being a god consisted of being taken from place to place against your will.”

“You’ll learn to control the drifting, in time. You’ll feel the pull, but you’ll be able to ignore it. Not yet, however. You are weak, now. Untethered.”

Percy thought of where the world had taken him, a few days before. He had suddenly appeared in a clearing, silver wolves circling him. Before him, Thalia Grace knelt in the grass, a match between her fingers. She lit him a solitary candle. Percy knew it had been meant for him, and it filled him with warmth, for just a moment. Thalia Grace had lit him a candle, without knowing what it was he had done. She lit him a candle because she trusted him, and she loved him. She did not know what the others knew. Percy let himself be snatched up by the world without saying a word. His next destination had been fifty feet underwater, amidst a school of fish. He drifted in the Pacific Ocean until he could bring himself to stir. 

“I hate it.” Percy didn’t know what would happen if he found himself in front of her again, how he could bear it. 

“It’s to be expected.” Hestia said. “You have begun experiencing the mortal world like a god. Naturally, you’re confused. But it will be resolved.”

Percy Jackson thought about the places he had been taken. He thought of the pull in his stomach, growing stronger and stronger with every moment. 

“I’m not done with the mortal world yet. I have things I have to do,” he said. “Don’t I?”

“I suppose you do.” Hestia smiled. 

She did not seem angry with him. Percy wondered if it was because she too, had done terrible things, things the myths had kept to themselves. Storytellers probably knew better than to upset the goddess of the hearth, after all. 

“I better get going, then.” Percy said.

The forest faded away. He felt himself slipping, sliding. 

When Percy Jackson opened his eyes, he was standing atop a hill overlooking a valley. The smell of strawberries hung in the air. He was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm reading all the comments and I will reply!!! I did my math test today so at least I'm rid of that! Merry Christmas!!!


	24. Of Journeys and Jaunts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny Jackson sails away as her father watches.

Percy Jackson watched as Chiron approached him. He had no idea how Chiron had known he was coming. He supposed that he had a knack for identifying threats. The boundary stood between them. Percy could see it now, a faint sort of shimmer, a buzz of magic. He did not step towards it. He was not sure he was ready. Below, he could see campers. A game was on in the volleyball field. Two distant figures were sparring. Someone was sailing in a canoe. Nothing had changed. Things just went on and on. Heroes came and went. The rivers flow to the sea, and yet the sea is never full. 

The constant tug that Percy had felt, the pull of the world, was still there, but it had calmed, as if sated by the strawberry fields and the sea air. The hill he was standing on was where his journey had started. He remembered the storm raging overhead, remembered Grover, remembered feeling lost. He remembered how it had felt watching his mother disappear before his eyes, not knowing if he would ever see her again. 

Chiron made his way to him and crossed the boundary gingerly. He didn’t look any older, but that was to be expected. He was wearing an old t-shirt, and a quiver was slung over his back. Percy remembered meeting him for the first time, too, as a centaur, not a Latin teacher. He wondered if Chiron remembered that moment, too, if he knew what he had gotten into after Percy had defeated the Minotaur. 

“Perseus.” he said. He looked disappointed. Percy didn’t delude himself. Chiron knew what he had done, and probably knew what he would do. There was nothing he could hide from him. 

“Why am I here?” Percy asked. 

“That’s a good question.” 

“I spoke with Hestia. She sent me here, more or less. I thought… well, I thought I was done with this place a long time ago.” 

Once, he’d thought that if he did everything right, killed all the right monsters, completed all the prophecies, he’d sit in front of the ever-changing bonfire forever, until he was as old as the granny who put on her armor. That wasn’t what happened, in the end. It was Penny who had entrenched herself in Camp Half Blood, long after both her parents had left it behind. It was Penny who had made it her home. 

“How’s Penny?” Percy asked. 

She had been at the funeral, of course, weeping silently into his arm. The two of them had sat together, that night, before Percy had gotten up to go. He couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye to her when he stepped out, but she’d known where he was going. She’d known for a long time that both her parents would leave one after the other.

“She came back.” Chiron looked out into the distance. The ocean was barely visible from the top of the hill, shining in the sun. “I am not sure, exactly, what she intends to do.”

“What do you mean?” 

Chiron shrugged. “You left her with a great legacy, you know, you and Annabeth both. She is still trying to find a way to honor it.”

“Could you tell her…” Percy fell silent. He didn’t know what to say to his daughter, didn’t know what Chiron could tell her that would make her dislike him any less. “I love her.” he said. “Tell her that.”

“I will.” Chiron replied. He hesitated, for a moment, before speaking. “I believe she is embarking on a quest.”

“A quest?” the words sent a shudder through his body, and for a moment the gravity pulling at him nearly managed to snatch him away. Quests never ended well, even the victorious ones. They were nasty, terrible things.

“It is of her own volition.” Chiron said. “I gave her my blessing. I hope it will help her heal. She is setting sail as we speak.”

“Setting sail?” Percy Jackson looked out into the water. A small ship was drifting in the ocean, just a speck on the horizon. He thought he could see a young woman inside, her hair waving in the wind, but maybe that was just his imagination. 

“She is a remarkable sailor, and Poseidon will keep his eye on her.” Chiron said. The ship crested the waves, slowly getting farther away. 

“Why didn’t she tell me?” Percy asked. He thought about crossing the boundary and running down to the shore, making his way through the water to say goodbye. He wondered if he would do it. He wondered if he could do it, but as the boat got farther away from the shore, he realized he wasn’t moving at all. 

Chiron shrugged. “Children seldom do what we expect them to. You named your daughter after a woman who waited, but perhaps she is tired of waiting.”

Percy looked out into the water, where his daughter was sailing away. It was true, they had named their daughter after Penelope, who had waited for her husband whilst warding off suitors. Penelope had had the happiest of endings, after all, Annabeth had told him once, and when he’d asked why she’d said, simply, that in the end she had lived happily ever after with the man she loved most in the world. But their child did not want to wait. Their child had decided, much like Odysseus, to set sail. Perhaps it was better that way. Perhaps it was good that she was embarking on her own journey. 

Percy had a lot of things he wanted to say to his daughter. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, he wanted to wish her luck, he wanted to warn her about sea monsters, but all that would have to wait for later. He looked out to the sea, and instead uttered a single word, the same word that had been spoken to him when it had all started, all those years ago. 

“Go.” Percy said, and lifted his hand in goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? not do character symmetry? NEVER


	25. Of Keys and Carnations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy, Nico and Thalia meet for the first time in years.

Percy Jackson had been sitting under the tree for what had felt like hours. He felt as though he was waiting for something, although he did not know what. The tide that brought him everywhere had left him there, and his stomach was calm, or at least momentarily. The woods were still, eerie, as if waiting along with him. 

Percy did not know how long it had been since he had been in once place for so long. Ever since he’d watched his daughter sail away on her own quest, he had been snatched from place to place, as if adrift. Sometimes he’d end up in the ocean, alongside his daughter, but if she could hear him or see him she didn’t admit to it, keeping her eyes trained on the horizon. All that was coming to an end, now. Percy could feel it in the way things shifted around him. Soon the waters would settle. Soon he would reach wherever it was he was going. But first, this. Whatever it was. 

The two figures appeared almost simultaneously. The first peeled itself away from the shadows, stepping into the faint light. The second emerged from the undergrowth, panting, bow in hand. The two stopped when they saw each other, their eyes wide. They mouthed the other’s name, and then, they turned to face Percy. 

It was Thalia who spoke first. 

“Jackson.” she lowered her bow. “Nico. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Him.” Nico said bluntly, inclining his head towards Percy. He kept his distance, letting the shadows envelope him. He was wearing a long, black coat embellished with silver buttons that gleamed softly. Thalia glanced at him, confused. She looked the same as she had decades ago, young, eager, dressed in black jeans and a camo tank top. Only her eyes had changed. They were older now, shrewder. It had been a long time since Annabeth’s funeral, or at least it had felt like it. Nico looked older, smaller. His black hair had turned silver. Percy wanted to go over and hug him. He didn’t.

“Should I be worried?” she finally asked, turning to Percy. He placed his hands in his pockets. 

“No.” he said. “I won’t harm you. I promise.”

“What happened?” Thalia asked, looking Percy up and down. Nobody said a word. Thalia sighed and raised her bow again, aiming it at Nico’s chest. “Explain.”

“Two sisters.” Nico said. His voice was strangled, hoarse. “Two sisters of mine he’s lost.”

Thalia’s eyes widened. “Hazel’s dead?” she asked quietly. “When?”

“Right after Annabeth.” Nico said. 

“How?” 

“Ask him.” Nico avoided Percy’s eyes, carefully looking at the ground instead, as if waiting for it to swallow him. 

Thalia turned to Percy. He shook his head.

“Me.” he said. It was enough. Thalia raised her bow. 

“You bastard.” she said through gritted teeth. “You bastard, how could you-”

“Thalia.” it was Nico who spoke. He sounded tired. “Stop.”

“He killed her.” Thalia’s cheeks reddened. She looked ready to pierce him with as many arrows as she could.

“He was just a tool.” Nico sighed. “It had to happen, one way or another.”

Thalia did not look reassured, but the murderous look in her eye faded. 

“So.” she said. “The three of us. Again.”

There would be others, of course, but they had been the children of the prophecy. The three of them, children of the eldest gods. Percy could almost see those that hadn’t made it in the space between them, Hazel and Bianca and Jason, just memory now. 

“Us, again.” Nico seemed almost transparent, as if becoming one with the shadows. His shoulders curled inwards, and there was something in his gaze that made Percy think of the Lotus Hotel, of the prison of time, of seventy years, rolled in on themselves.

“I never would have expected it to be you.” Thalia said. “You were Camp Half Blood’s golden boy.” Something about her was different too. The way she looked at him, the way she held herself, constantly moving, as if trying to stop roots from taking hold in the soil. There was something different, Percy thought, in the air. Something dark, bringing the past with it. 

“I was.” Percy said bitterly. “Not anymore. They got what they wanted of me.”

It was strange, how seeing Camp Half Blood had filled him with weariness. It was the same as it had always been. The only difference was that there were other children, where he had once been, other children that would die instead of graduating, other children that would mourn the friends they once sang with around the campfire. 

“The last time the three of us were together like this…” Thalia trailed off. “It was a long time ago.”

“Christmas.” Nico said. “We’d gone to get the key of Hades.”

Percy remembered it. He remembered how they had tracked Ethan Nakamura with a carnation that had led them to the goddess of ghosts. 

“We aren’t here by accident, are we?” Thalia asked. “But there isn’t a quest for us. Not this time.” The air was thick with magic, with the dark smell of the Underworld. The smell of death. 

“No.” Percy said. “I think… I think this is more of a reminder.”

Or a haunting, he wanted to say. The revenge of a goddess he had bested. Melinoe had tried to show him his ghosts, all those years ago, only to come up with nothing. He wondered what he would see, if he met her now. He wondered how long he would gaze into her face, unable to tear himself away. He wondered how many people there would be. 

It was Nico who broke the silence. 

“The other gods are expecting you.” he said, but not unkindly. Percy did not think he hated him. He hoped not, anyway. He nodded and got to his feet. It was time to go.

“Take care.” Thalia smiled. “Don’t forget us.”

Percy Jackson knew there were things he would be able to forget. This was not one of them. Melinoe had made it clear. Some ghosts stayed hidden, until the right moment, but they were always there, always lurking. 

“I won’t.” he said, and let the world whisk him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to post this yesterday but then civil war 2: electric boogaloo happened and I spent the night refreshing CNN instead. stay safe out there!


	26. Of Halls and Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson reaches Olympus, home of the gods.

Percy Jackson found himself in front of the Empire State Building. There was no question about it. It was time. New York buzzed in the background. Cars swerved and honked in the street. The smell of hot dogs and gasoline hung in the air. A couple walked by with a french bulldog in a stroller. It was New York, and it belonged to him, just as it had back when he was a kid. Its presence calmed him. 

The doors to the Empire State building were open. Percy could tell that from the moment he crossed the street he would no longer be in New York. Not fully, at least. He would be somewhere older, somewhere that still acted like a mountain, large and looming. Percy swallowed. He didn’t look as he walked into the street, and if that was the god in him or the New Yorker, he didn’t know. Then he walked in. 

The guard was reading a comic book. He looked up when Percy walked in. It was the same guard. He was wearing the same outfit. He was smiling. 

“It’s you.” he said. He set down his comic book and pulled out a key card from under his desk. “I thought I’d see you again. Here you go.” He handed Percy the card. 

“I just go in?” Percy asked. “Through the elevators? The same way?” It seemed wrong, for some reason, that he would go up the same way he had when he was a eleven year old boy, scared witless. 

“Do you know of any other way?” the guard asked. 

Percy didn’t, so he called on the elevator, and headed towards the top. He’d been in the elevator before, alone with the master bolt. Back then, of course, he hadn’t heard the whispering, but now it filled his ears, along with the insufferable elevator music. Whispers from the past, words so powerful they clawed their way from the edges of his prepubescent memory and rang in his ears. The voice, he was certain, was a voice from the past, the voice of the master bolt. A voice no human could hear. It had dug deep into him, hiding until he found himself in the elevator once again, ready to hear it. 

“Power.” the voice said. “So much power. That is what you carry with you.”

The master bolt had to have been talking about itself, all those years ago. But Percy knew that it was also talking about him. 

“It is a dangerous sort of power.” the master bolt said, and then it fell silent. The doors of the elevator opened. Percy stepped out to the 600th floor. 

They were waiting for him. There were twelve of them. Hades was absent, and Hestia quietly tended the hearth. His eyes went to hers, first, before the rest. The fire flickered. The gods stared at him, the air was full of ozone. He had denied their offer, years ago, and yet here he stood again.

It was Zeus that spoke first. 

“Perseus Jackson.” he said. “You punk.” he smiled, and it was not a welcoming one, it was a fearful one, all canines. “You are welcome in our hall. Please, feast.”

There was nothing else to be said. The tables appeared from nothing, laden not with human food but with god food, ambrosia and nectar. Percy ate, and he drank, and his eyes met those of the god in front of him, Hermes, full of sadness, and Percy thought of his son, blond haired, blue eyed, and dead for more than fifty years. The pain had not gone away, nor would it ever. Next to look him over was Athena, and she looked at him as one would look over a sword. Dionysus, Mr. D., muttered something about insufferable campers when his bloodshot eyes met his, but Percy thought he saw him smile.

His father was last. His father, who looked at him, his eyes the ocean, and nodded, once, in approval.

It was enough. 

There was nothing else to bind him to Olympus, no other ritual, nothing but the food of the gods, making him one of the divine. The Olympians vanished once they had their fill, Aphrodite and Ares going first, and quickly followed by the others. In the end, it was only him and Athena. 

“I am sorry.” she said. “I loved my daughter very much.”

Percy knew it to be true, knew that the pain would not go away, simply pile onwards and onwards. And then Athena left him, and he was alone in the hall. 

He left it, then, and began to wander. He had never gone far in Olympus, before. He hadn’t visited, when Annabeth had been alive, because the thought of being there before his time frightened him. It felt foreign to him now, like the battleground it had once been. He followed the white path from the hall of the gods, not knowing where else to go. The path led him to a white stone. He stopped beside it without knowing why. The stone was decorated with a chariot. The horse and the wheels. Athena and Poseidon. 

Percy Jackson closed his eyes, and when he opened them, when he truly opened them, he saw the power, for the first time, from every crevice, from every building. He saw the beauty. And more than anything, he saw one final letter, one final gift, one final goodbye dedicated to him, written over and over, etched in the home of the gods. It was from his wife, the divine architect, who had planned every stone, designed every rock. It said one thing, said it loud and clear. 

I love you. I love you. I love you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll be honest, I shocked myself with this one.


	27. Of Epics and Elegance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson meets the Muses.

Percy Jackson found himself returning to Olympus, time and time again. He could leave, and he did, often, but he always came back, to the gardens, to the temples. There was something comforting about it, something comforting about the neat paths, the flowers, blooming, the statues. There was something in them that felt right, felt holy. 

Most of the residents of Olympus kept their distance, from fear or indifference Percy wasn’t certain. The Muses’ songs echoed throughout the white temples and the green expanses. Percy saw them sometimes, from a distance, and looked at him, their eyes keen with emotion. There were the Graces, as well, shy women who flitted to and fro, carrying cups of wine and nectar. On more than one occasion, Percy saw Iris, often along with the rest of her co-op, delivering messages. The other gods had realms to tend to, and Percy saw them only once in a while. 

Percy had no realm, or at least, not one he was aware of. Sometimes, the pull in his stomach would get stronger, and take him somewhere. Often he would go out into the ocean and watch as his daughter sailed towards the old lands, towards Greece. He wasn’t sure what she was doing. He tried to speak to her, but she never replied. 

He did not know how much time had passed. Outside, summer was ending, the leaves turning red, purple, and yellow. Days passed differently on Olympus. Percy would wander from morning to night and then settle down somewhere in the gardens. Olympus was endless. Sometimes he found himself in the hall, eating with the gods. They would watch him as they drank and ate. He knew he could leave. He didn’t want to. He felt strange in the mortal world, felt that he was no longer part of it. He had imbibed so much ambrosia and nectar that he felt the last of his mortality dissipating, but he did not feel quite ready to leave Olympus yet. He felt as if he was a butterfly, his wings still forming, tucked inside a chrysalis.

It was morning when he met the weeping muse. He was surprised he hadn’t seen her coming. Most of the time, the Muses made their presence abundantly known, but this one was sitting on a bench, her face pressed in her hands. Percy froze when he saw her, and then took a step forward. The Muse looked up, a smile crossing her tearful face. 

“It is good to see you, Perseus Jackson.” she patted the bench beside her. “Sit.”

Percy had never bothered to learn the names of the Muses, or what they looked like. They hadn’t been high on his list of priorities, all things considered. He had been busy learning what could kill him, and how it could be defeated. He racked his brain as he sat next to the Muse, who had a writing tablet resting gently on her lap. 

“Is something wrong?” Percy finally asked. The Muse’s eyes were still bloodshot, although she was no longer crying. Percy shifted uncomfortably on the bench, wondering what bad news she could possibly know that he didn’t. 

“No.” the Muse smiled. “Forgive me. I carry my sisters’ hearts with me, you see, and they are fickle things.” Percy realized now that he could see the other Muses standing over the hill, gathered together, the light shining through their silk dresses. 

“I’m the eldest of the muses,” the Muse said, placing one of her hands over his. “My sisters are shy, I fear, so I have come alone.”

“Thank you.” Percy said. Her hand was warm. “Um, if I may ask, why are you here?” He tried to remember if there was a Muse of prophecy and came up with nothing. 

The Muse laughed. “It’s not often that a man asks that. Most of the time, they are far more demanding. They want to take from the beauty that is mine. Not you, however. You have not once tried to chase us.” she squeezed his hand affectionately. “I’m here to welcome you. it can be lonely, in the realm of the gods. But I hope that here you will find yourself. Your godly self.” She seemed sad, the fingers of her left hand tracing over the letters of the writing tablet. 

“You’re the epic one, aren’t you?” Percy blurted. “Calliope.” The eldest of the muses, the mother of someone important. 

“Yes, I am the epic one.” Calliope smiled. Mother of Orpheus. Orpheus, who had looked back and lost his love. Orpheus, whose head had drifted down a river still singing. “I tell stories. Long, important stories. Such as yourself.” she looked him over, but kindly, softly. 

“I am here to welcome you, because I am the guardian of stories, and you are still telling yours.” Calliope said. “I will be happy to see where it goes, and I hope it will end where you want it.”

She squeezed his hand and got to her feet. Percy watched her go. He wondered what it was, the strange feeling he was feeling. As he watched Calliope join her sisters, he realized it was peace. Calliope did not want to see him crash and burn. She didn’t want to witness destruction, and wasn't warning of the horrors to come. She was simply watching a flower unfurl in a garden, one among many. 

Percy Jackson had not wanted to become a god. He had not wanted to leave his world behind, did not want to roam the gardens of Olympus alone. But as he sat on the bench and looked up, towards the hill, where the Muses’ dresses glowed in the light, he found himself smiling. 

His story was yet to be over, his holiness not yet formed. But it would unfold, and perhaps, it would even be good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	28. Of Youth and Yearning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson meets Hebe

Percy Jackson walked the gardens of Olympus. He did not know what immortality would be like, but he definitely hadn’t thought it would be like this, walking in an endless maze of flowers and statues, drinking deeply from goblet after goblet. He had thought of godhood as something quicker, more violent, lightning, flashing across the horizon, the waves swallowing up a woman whole. 

Godhood was that. But it was also letting the moments stretch into days, letting each breath be defined by the smell of the flowers. Godhood wasn’t just the battles, it was all the little moments in between. It had been a long time since Percy had had a moment to himself. Heroes did not have them, did not rest for a second. They were constantly looking behind their backs for their next predator, or looking ahead for their next prey. Gods had all the time in the world, and it ran through their veins. 

Underneath Olympus, fall was spinning into winter. Percy did not know what was happening in the mortal realm, but it seemed to be much of the same. The solstice would be upon them soon, and the gods fluttered to their hall like moths to a flame, clinging to the moments where there was still light, the moment when it was they who had the upper hand and not the children of the night. 

It was after dinner when he met the goddess. He had become acquainted with most everyone already, the muses, the Olympians, the satyrs. He had spoken to the three seasons. He had given his regards to Iris. The goddess who stopped him in his path as he attempted to leave the hall was a cupbearer, holding a golden pitcher. She was wearing a long, white dress, and she stood directly in front of him as everyone else filed out. Percy did not speak. He had learned that minor gods had a tendency to introduce themselves when they felt it was time to begin the conversation, and the goddess was no different. 

“Hebe.” she said, flashing pearly white teeth. “Cupbearer of Zeus.”

Percy had a feeling she would say something like that, although he could have sworn she had a few more accolades to her name. “Nice to meet you.” The hall of the gods had emptied. It was just the two of them, standing between thrones that crackled with power. 

“I hope you don’t think me impertinent,” Hebe said, tucking a strand of curly blonde hair behind her ear. Her fingers were covered in golden rings, the same shade as the pitcher. “I wanted a word.” 

“Okay,” Percy said. Hebe giggled nervously. Percy had never heard a goddess giggle like she had, light-heartedly, cheerfully, her brown eyes glowing. Then she composed herself. She reminded Percy of Penny, his daughter, reminded him of the campers back at Camp Half-Blood. It took him a moment to realize why. Hebe was also the goddess of youth, and the figure in front of him shone with youth, with freshness. 

“It’s the solstice soon.” Hebe said. “Things shift, during the solstice. Surely you must feel it.” Her fingers tapped against the pitcher eagerly. 

“Yes.” Percy could feel it crawling over his skin, the darkness, the way the sunlight fled after a few brief hours. 

“You are changing too.” Hebe added, poking Percy’s chest with a slim finger. “How’d you feel about that?”

“I do feel less young.” Percy admitted. “If that’s what you mean.” It was as if his bones had been previously hollow, and now they were slowly being filled with something, something that weighed him down but at the same time sustained him. 

Hebe wrinkled her face into a scowl. “That’s all that people talk about these days. Youth this and youth that. Everyone is obsessed with it! What I meant was that you’ve been here a while. You’ve changed.”

It was true. He had changed. He knew, deep inside, that he was no longer mortal. There were things that had grown in him that could no longer be killed. He had taken a life, but he had not broken the world. Well, there was always time for that, he supposed. 

“Not to be rude,” Percy asked, “but why do you care?”

“I knew a demigod turned god once,” Hebe said, her cheeks turning bright red. “Hercules, you know. He’s not around now, he’s um, busy. His father, Zeus, sent him on a task.”

Percy remembered the task well. It involved Hercules throwing coconuts at passersby. He decided not to mention it. 

“All I’m saying,” Hebe lowered her voice, “is if you stick around for too long, someone might find you something to do. If you catch my drift.”

“I do.” Percy said. He hadn’t considered he was overstaying his welcome, but he supposed the minor gods were only too happy to have someone to talk too. It was the Olympians who didn’t like party-crashers. Hebe stood, pitcher in hand, almost like a bouncer. A perky, cheerful, underage bouncer, but one all the same. And Percy had been kicked out of enough places to catch her drift. There was something else, in her tone, in the way she had mentioned the solstice. The gods did not want him here on their most turbulent day. They were afraid he would upset the balance. He didn’t know if that thought amused him or upset him. 

“Thank you Hebe.” he said. He meant it. 

“No problem!” Hebe chirped. She turned to leave, the golden pitcher gleaming. Percy watched her curls bounce away and then walked out into the gardens. The longer he spent there, the closer he felt to Annabeth. He could see her in every structure, in every rosebush, in every cobblestone. 

“Don’t worry,” he said into the open air. “I won’t be gone forever. Just for a while.”

He sent a kiss into the air of the garden, and headed towards the doors leading out. There were people in the mortal realm he had yet to say his goodbyes too, people that would soon be dining in the halls of Elysium. He had parted from many as a man, but there were others, others that would benefit from seeing him as a god. Percy Jackson left the gates of Olympus behind, ichor flowing through his veins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay next chapter is going to be a BANGER stick around


	29. Of Love and Legends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson speaks to Clarisse about her past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so in my defense I have poor impulse control and I had some extra time on my hands. what can I say, I'm an agent of chaos

Percy Jackson stared at the urn. It was clay, decorated with simple black glaze that formed the shadows of warriors. Percy could tell it wasn’t empty. 

“Will you stop snooping around my house, you dick?” Clarisse’s voice came from the backyard. Percy jumped. He hadn’t meant to appear in the middle of her living room. He’d just thought about her, and the next moment he was breathing in the arid Arizona air, looking at the urn on the mantel. 

“Whoever you are,” Clarisse said. “I’m warning you, don’t make me get up--”

Percy sighed and walked towards the sound of her voice. Clarisse was sitting on a rocker in the backyard, a beer in hand, wearing an old black t-shirt and blue jeans. She hardly looked at Percy as he sat down in the empty rocker next to hers. 

“You punk.” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Just saying hello.” Percy replied. Clarisse scoffed, running a gnarled hand through her silver hair. She didn’t seem intimidated. She examined him with piercing eyes. 

“You’re here because you think I’ll drop dead any moment now, don’t you?” she asked. “Gods, one hint of immortality and you act like we’re mayflies.” She took a swig of her beer, and then glared at him. “I’m doing perfectly fine thanks for asking, and you?”

“Sorry. I’m doing fine.” Percy said. He was relieved to see that Clarisse seemed like she had no intention of dying, even with the eerie urn in the living room. Despite knowing what happened, she didn’t seem frightened in the slightest. The sun was beginning to set over the mountains. Percy watched as the light kissed the desert. 

“It’s beautiful out here.” Clarisse said. “Makes my bones feel young. Did you really come because you thought I was dying?” 

“I didn’t think you were going to die immediately.” Percy said defensively. “I just wanted to check in. It’s been a while.”

It had been a while, Clarisse thought, and the two of them had hardly spoken in that time. They had both changed. Clarisse had molded herself into something so different she doubted most people from back then would recognize her, but Percy did. He had always understood some part of her better than everyone else. 

The last Percy had heard, Clarisse had been keeping an eye on the Labyrinth entrance in the desert, and had been for years. She’d lived with Chris a while back, and then they’d broken up. Percy didn’t know if she’d ever gotten married again. He didn’t even know what she did, other than keep her eyes peeled for monsters. 

An enormous brown dog ambled up to her and licked her hand. Clarisse scratched him behind the ears. Percy reached out to pet the dog and it snapped at him, teeth foaming. Percy snatched his hand back. 

“I’ve got rescue dogs here.” she said. “They’re skittish. I would’ve warned you, if I knew you were coming, but seeing as you’re immortal, it’s not like they could’ve done anything.”

“Fair enough.” The dog gave Percy a baleful glance and slunk away. 

“I have been thinking about it.” Clarisse said after a moment of silence. “Death, I mean.” She took another swig of her beer. “More like, I’ve been thinking about life, back when we were teens. I was a dumb kid.”

“Yeah, you were.” Percy agreed. Clarisse punched his shoulder. 

“There were a lot of things I wished I had realized. A lot of things I regret.” Clarisse tapped the bottle thoughtfully. “I saw you looking at the urn.” 

Percy nodded, feeling suddenly as if he had intruded on something deeply private. 

“Silena’s ashes are in there.” 

Percy thought of Silena Beauregard, who had died pretending to be Clarisse, slain by a drakon. He thought of her blue eyes, shining behind Clarisse’s helmet. 

“I kept them.” Clarisse La Rue’s voice faltered. She had never told this to anyone but herself, but this was a story she had to tell, one she couldn’t take to the grave. 

“After Beckendorf died, well, we grew close. Neither of us understood what we felt, but I was in love with her… and I think… I think that she was in love with me.” Clarisse fell silent, thinking of Silena’s blue eyes, of how, despite being a daughter of love, she hadn’t been able to see what was right in front of her. 

“Eventually, she found herself. She tried to tell me, but I didn’t understand, so she spoke to me the only way I understood. War.”

Clarisse La Rue had never been a big fan of the classics, especially the long winded ones, but everyone was familiar with the story that had carved itself into her life; the heel, the armor, the horse, the tragic, untimely death. The son of Thetis and his companion, trying to bring down the walls of Troy. 

Clarisse turned and glowered at Percy. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You’re a moron. But I never told anyone else the whole thing, in its entirety, and well…” she took a deep breath. “It is a story that deserves to live on. A love story. Between Silena and I.”

Clarisse drained her bottle. Percy stared at her in silence, not knowing what to say. 

“When I die my ashes will be mixed with hers. We never found Beckendorf's body. I know… I know that in the end she loved Beckendorf more than anything, that she’s spent all this time in Elysium with him, but I just want to tell her how much she meant to me.”

Clarisse fell quiet. One of the dogs whimpered from the shadows. 

“I’m glad you’ll be around for a while yet.” Clarisse said. “Moron.”

“Thanks.” Percy was still thinking about the urn, about Clarisse. “I’m sorry.” he said. 

“Don’t be,” Clarisse smiled. “I've made my peace with it. Soon, I'll be able to see her eyes again, and that will be enough.”

The sun disappeared behind the mountains. Percy thought of the myths that echoed throughout time. He thought of how Clarisse had slain the drakon, of how she had glowed with Ares’s blessing. He thought of a warrior outside the walls of Troy, he thought of his comrade, wearing his armor to battle. All stories reformed themselves when no one was looking. All stories climbed their way out of the shadows they had been hiding in and began again. This one was no different, Percy thought. He sat beside the silver haired warrior in the growing darkness and smiled.


	30. Of Family and Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny Jackson goes in search of herself.

Percy Jackson watched as Penny’s ship slowly approached shore. It had been a long journey across the Atlantic, even for the granddaughter of Poseidon. The ship looked as if it had seen better days, the sides marred with claw marks and splashes of what looked like poison. Penny herself looked okay, if tired. Her black hair was tied up into a bun, and her gray eyes glittered dully. 

Percy wasn’t sure what he would have done if something had happened to her, out there at sea. He’d tried to speak with her several times, now, but she had always ignored him. Or perhaps she simply hadn’t heard him. Not this time, though. This time the two of them would have a proper conversation. Before she reached Greece, and did whatever it was she was set out to do. 

Penny noticed him only a few miles away from land. He positioned himself next to the boat, walking on the waves. To his surprise, she smiled when she saw him. 

“Hi.” she said. She didn’t seem surprised. “Good to see you, Dad.”

“Penny.” Percy said. “May I come in?” he gestured towards the boat. 

“Sure.” 

Percy clambered in and sat beside his daughter. He had missed her, so very badly. It had been so long since the two of them had sat down together for a talk. The last time had been… it had been after Annabeth. Percy didn’t want to think about it. 

“I heard you took to Olympus.” Penny broke the silence. “A little bird told me. Well, actually, a little fish.”

“I did. It was… odd. Your mother definitely made the place look its best.”

Penny smiled wryly. She hadn’t even been born when Annabeth had become Olympus’s architect. She had always known her mother as the woman who designed temples in the sky. 

“Are you here to stop me?” Penny asked suddenly. “Because, well, it’s a little late for that.” 

She sounded sad. Resigned, even. Percy couldn’t help but think that even though she was his little girl, would always be his little girl, she was an adult. He couldn’t tell her to do anything. Especially not after what he had done. 

“I know.” He didn’t know how to ask her why it was she was sitting in a boat, sailing to a hostile land crawling with monsters so long after she had already paid her dues to Camp Half-Blood. She wasn’t a questing teenager anymore, armed with nothing but her wits. She’d grown up, and yet she was chasing something. 

“You think I’m crazy.” Penny said. “You think that I’ve fallen in love with the half-blood life, that I don’t know how to let go of the danger.”

“I didn’t say that.” 

“You were thinking it. Chiron thinks so as well. But he doesn’t get it, and neither do you. I’m… I’m a legacy, Dad. To you, and Mom. The child of a union that well, it’s unusual, to say the least.”

Penny looked off, the shores of Greece glowing white in the moonlight. 

“I need to figure some things out. About myself. About what it means to be the daughter of two of the greatest heroes ever, of what it means to be descended from Poseidon and Athena. About what it means to be descended from you.”

Penny didn’t sound bitter, but Percy understood what she was saying. She couldn’t know who she was before he understood what it was he had become. Until then, that part of her would always be shrouded in mystery. Percy bit his lip. 

“You know you’re always welcome to talk to me, right?”

“No offense, Dad.” Penny said. “But you know you won’t understand.”

Poseidon had never understood, either. Not really. Percy knew that there was nothing he could do, that he had to let his daughter go. Let her find whatever it was she was looking for, where it all began. Make her own decisions. 

“You don’t have to be a hero.” Percy finally told her. “Remember that. I know that sometimes it’s easy to forget.”

“Not everyone has a choice.” Penny said, her eyes trained on the ocean. Her hand went to the beads around her neck, one for every summer. There were so many summers strung up. So many quests, so many missions. 

“I know you’re looking for something.” Percy said. “But Penny, don’t lose yourself. Don’t lose yourself to Chiron, to Camp Half Blood.”

“This has nothing to do with Camp.” Penny replied, but Percy could tell that she wasn’t telling the truth. He decided not to push her any further. He didn’t want to argue. Didn’t want to break whatever it was that had begun to form between them. 

Instead, he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out the pen. It had been a long time since he’d uncapped it. It had been even longer that he had had to do so. It was a hero’s sword, and he was no longer a hero. It was a hero’s sword, and although he wished she wasn’t, Penny was a hero. 

“Here.” he handed it to her. “It’s yours now.”

Penny examined Riptide reverently. 

“Thank you.” 

“Stay safe, Penny.” Percy said, and kissed her forehead, softly. “I love you.”

Percy walked towards the side of the ship and hopped into the water. Just as he went under, he thought he could hear his daughter say, ever so faintly, that she loved him too. 

Penny Jackson’s ship approached the ancient lands. She gripped her sword tightly. She could feel the monsters awakening below her. 

In Greece, the ancient land, the beginning of it all, something large, something ugly, raised its head in anticipation, sniffing at the wind. It had been waiting, waiting for a while, but now, it was ready. It was time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long it is absolutely chaotic out here! happy valentines folks


	31. Of Fury and Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Jackson meets his pre-algebra teacher.

Percy Jackson had always tried to be good. It was the universe that had never been on board. No matter what he did, something always went wrong. Things escaped his grasp, decisions turned to deaths, mistakes became danger. Percy Jackson was no stranger to atonement. For Jason, for Bob, for Beckendorf, for that blue Prius with four dents on the top. Not all of them his mistake, but all of them his responsibility. Hazel had been his mistake. He had killed her. Much had happened since she had died, but Percy knew that he had to do something, that if he waited too long it would be a permanent weight on his shoulders. One he wasn’t sure he could carry. 

Atoning was different, for gods. When he’d been a hero, payment for his wrongdoings had amounted to watching his back even more closely than he had before. When heroes made mistakes, danger followed, danger he paid for in blood. Gods did not pay in such ways. They were paid by other, more eternal, creatures, creatures that kept things in check. Creatures of the night. Creatures that were not called, but rather came on their own, when they felt the need.

Percy Jackson was not surprised when he saw Ms. Dodds perched on the ledge of a grimy apartment building. Not that that was her real name, of course, but it was the name that popped into his mind when he saw her. If it hadn’t been for her eyes, he might have ignored her, walked right past, thought her a particularly ugly gargoyle. As it was, he could feel them, on the back of his neck, eyes that made their presence known. Percy stopped and turned to face her. 

“Perseus Jackson.” A smile split her face in two, and she hopped down from her ledge. “Have you been working on your algebra?”

Her large, leather wings unfurled, and Percy found himself reaching for his pocket, only for his hand to fall away. Riptide was no longer there. He had given it to Penny. 

Ms. Dodds raised an eyebrow when his hands swung to his sides, empty. “Really?” she asked. “You’ve parted with it already?”

“It was a hero’s sword.” Percy said. 

“That’s neither here nor there,” the Kindly One replied. She narrowed her eyes and examined him, as if she could divulge something from his torn jeans and baggy sweatshirt. It had been a long time since he’d cleaned up properly. Not that there was nowhere he could go, but more that he didn’t feel like going anywhere. “Who could you have possibly surrendered it to?”

Percy didn’t reply. He wondered if Ms. Dodds would grab him by the collar and take him straight to the Underworld, or just to a nearby field. He wondered on whose behalf she would avenge Hazel, considering the fact that the debt to Hades had been paid. It was fitting, in a way, that she was the first monster he’d ever faced with Riptide, and now the first he’d faced without it. Back then, he’d had no idea what had awaited him, and he had a feeling, seeing Ms. Dodds’ face, that whatever awaited him now was probably worse.

“Oh, I see.” Ms. Dodds shook her head. “I knew there was a reason I was here.”

Percy stared. He had been convinced that it was about Hazel, but the way Ms. Dodds had said it, as if it hadn’t happened yet… 

“Aren’t you here about Hazel?” he asked. 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Ms. Dodds snapped. “It was very good of you to send her back. And about time, too.” A pigeon landed on Ms. Dodds’ foot, and she kicked it away irritably. 

“Then what are you here for?” Percy asked, trepidation crawling into his chest. 

Ms. Dodds threw her head back and laughed, a sharp, swift laugh of a hawk snatching up its prey. 

“It’s not easy being eternal, you know.” she said. “And before you go on about your newfound immortality, it is in no way the same. You may fade, one day, just as Pan did, or change so completely that there is nothing left. My sisters and I were here from very near the beginning, and I suppose we will be here until the end approaches.”

“Thank you for imparting that wisdom on me.” Percy said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Ms. Dodds shook her head slowly, almost imperceptibly. “It means that I’m old, and that sometimes I get dates mixed up. But you were owed a visit either way, weren’t you? So much blood.” She stared at Percy’s hands, and he shoved them into his pockets. 

“Now I assume you know my job.” Ms. Dodds said, her hand creeping towards the whip on her belt. Percy took a step back. The Kindly Ones, the Avengers, did as they wished. He doubted anything, not even his godhood, would stop them from torturing him if they really wanted to.

Ms. Dodds grinned. “So you do know my job. Well, I’m taking on a new approach with you. Especially now that I realize some things just haven’t come to pass yet.”

She sniffed the air, as if she could discern, beyond the smog of New York, and the stink of the garbage, something else. 

“In that case,” Ms. Dodds said, with a surprising amount of satisfaction considering the fact she was yet to beat him into a bloody pulp, “in that case, I think it’ll be more efficient if we wait.”

“Wait for what?” Percy demanded. 

“Oh.” Ms. Dodds beamed. “I see Chiron wasn’t as good as teaching you the classics as I thought. Not that there will be enough evidence to convict, of course, and my sisters and I couldn’t stand to act unjustly, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get the blame.” she spread her large, leather wings, scattering the flock of pigeons that had gathered around their feet. 

“You’ve already hurt yourself far more than I could.” Ms. Dodds said with a toothy smile. “Think about that.” She launched herself into the sky, and within a moment, she was nothing but another gray bird, circling above.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long I've been absolutely swamped!!!


End file.
